New member looking for advice

Hi Robert, I've moved your message to the "observing and imaging" forum, so that it gets a bit of a wider audience.

It would be useful to know what equipment you have at the moment, so we can give some specific advice. I'm sure that members would be more than happy to help you with some "hands on" assistance as well.

My name is Robert Riley aged 65. I am an experienced photographer who has always had an interest in Astronomy and now that I am semi retired I decided that Astro Photography is where I need to go next.

I am in the process in setting up my Skywatcher Telescope. I admit I need assistance. If anyone has advice or could offer hand’s on assistance I would be eternally grateful.

Regards.

Welcome to the Flamsteed forum, Robert! As Mike points out, it would be useful to know what model telescope you have. Skywatcher is great brand but they have all sorts of types in scopes and mounts.

Welcome to the Flamsteed Robert!

My 'scope is also a Skywatcher so will be following this post with great interest. I'm new to astrophotography too. So far a T-ring and adapter has served me well in photographing the Moon. Do you have these?

Thanks Mike, Tej and Christina. Apologies for late reply been busy with Christmas. Equipment I have is a s follows. Everything is set up ready to go I believe!

Skywatcher Explorer-200P(EQ5) telescope.

10 and 25mm eyepieces, x2 Barlow Lens, Nikon T ring, Skywatcher Dual Axis Motor Drive.

My photography equipment is Nikon. D700 and D300 Bodies. I intend to use the D300 for astronomical work. It is my 'backup' body for professional work I have done occasionally so it is hardly used.

Robert

Happy new year and welcome to the forum, Robert!
I've not done much at all with imaging with a telescope so I will let the others reply but I thought I'd say hello anyway 🙂

Thankyou Sumitra, nice to hear from you.

Skywatcher Explorer-200P(EQ5) telescope.

10 and 25mm eyepieces, x2 Barlow Lens, Nikon T ring, Skywatcher Dual Axis Motor Drive.

My photography equipment is Nikon. D700 and D300 Bodies. I intend to use the D300 for astronomical work. It is my ‘backup’ body for professional work I have done occasionally so it is hardly used.

Thanks for the details Robert. Given that you have a T-Ring, have you connected the D300 to your telescope? If so, were you able to achieve focus on a star? I ask only because Newtonian scopes are notorious for not having sufficient "back-focus" to enable the image to come into focus. There are ways around this, but it would be useful to know if you've managed to achieve focus before offering further advice.

Are there any specific issues that you are finding with setting up your telescope? I'm more than happy to arrange for someone to come and assist you, or to arrange for you to bring your scope to a mutually convenient location... I just want to understand any specific issues first. It may be that we can give you guidance via these forums for a few "quick wins"... let me know.

Mike, I have got everything setup and have attached eyepieces/Camera. Getting my head around the instructions from Skywatcher. I hope to have a go at focusing this weekend. Will let you know how I get on, but assistance could well be needed, any help would be gratefully accepted.

Robert

You have a nice kit, Robert.

I always find it easier to be either shown or to watch a video in how to setup something relatively complex. The skywatcher manual was a nightmare to get my head around!

Although I have a different mount to yours, I learnt how to set it up using this excellent very straight forward tutorial video which actually uses your exact model as an example!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXgtGQq-3V0

Watch the video and make notes of each step he goes through, also draw your own rough sketch of the mount and ring positions he goes through. Thats what I did and as a result I have mastered polar alignment quickly and easily which btw is a key thing to master with precision (along with precise focussing) if you want to achieve the sharpest astro images without trails.

The above however, assumes your polarsope reticule arrived calibrated. Alas, life is often not so simple and sometimes reticules do not come calibrated well. Its very simple to test whether your reticule is calibrated.

What you do is point your polarscope at any stable land object during the day or at any star at night (might as well be polaris, so you dont need to adjust your bolts drastically) and put it in the crosshair of polarscope (using the altitude/azimuth bolts). Then unlock your RA bolt and rotate your mount on the RA axis 180deg. Observe where polaris is now on your polarscope. If it has remained on the crosshair then hooray, it was calibrated 🙂 If however, it has drifted away from the crosshair position then your reticule was not calibrated. If that is the case, I suggest follow just the reticule alignment section from these instructions:

http://www.astro-baby.com/HEQ5/HEQ5-1.htm

Regardless of your astrophotography ambitions, I do hope you exploit the wonderful observational opportunities your scope can provide! Galaxies, nebulas, moon craters, planetary features and their moons all within reach with that big scope of yours 🙂

Do let Mike know how you get on and if he sends someone to you, I'll be happy to put my hand up to assist you with setup at a convenient location.

Wow Tej, fantastic Thankyou. I will watch and take your advice and get back to you.

Robert