SingAstro

hi guys.
i am deciding whether to get a alt az GOTO mount for just basic stargazing and astrophotography. Is it possible to use it for astrophoto or can i use stacking software for that?

will have to depend on the accuracy of the goto mount.
Astrophoto is doable...but note if you are serious about photogrpahy, you will need to invest in an equatorial drive mount instead and learn drift alignment. This will ensure reasonable tracking for long exposures.

I use a Alt-az mount without GOTO to take images of the Sun. I have not tried my mount for night astrophotography yet.

Hi,
Basically Alt-Az mount are not suitable for most Astrophotography without an equatorial wedge (if it support one)... you should be able to do some of those very short exposure astrophotography, such as lunar and planetary.

Longer exposure is basically impossible due to field rotation... You might be able to do some long exposure astrophotography if you image object directly on east-west plane, but not cross over the zenith during the exposure.

Have a nice day.

Hi guys,

appreciate the answers. I will be getting the ioptron goto mount. It does have a retrofit for the wedge. Think i will be capturing the southern astropics. Will stacking help also? Will be using a DSLR.

I doubt ioptron is up to the task, use http://www.astrotrac.com/

ariefm71 wrote:I doubt ioptron is up to the task, use http://www.astrotrac.com/

Note that you would need to polar align the Astrotrac. In Singapore I do not know how to do that yet..

Tachyon wrote:

ariefm71 wrote:I doubt ioptron is up to the task, use http://www.astrotrac.com/

Note that you would need to polar align the Astrotrac. In Singapore I do not know how to do that yet..

I written to the MD of astrotrac regarding this as well.

Actually with GPS and hence all the GOTO capability, why didn't someone come out with an automatic polar align mount by now?

[quote="kamiru"]Hi guys,

appreciate the answers. I will be getting the ioptron goto mount. It does have a retrofit for the wedge. Think i will be capturing the southern astropics. Will stacking help also? Will be using a DSLR.[/quote]

I am using an iOptron Minitower, but thus far for visual use only. You can use it to image the moon and planets. For such short exposures, field rotation is not a problem. But it is a lot more difficult with DSOs.

If you seach "astrophotography" in the iOptron group in http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ioptron/ you will find some discussions about a John Bozeman who was able to do some DSO imaging with the iOptron but without a wedge. The gist is that his exposures are short enough for field rotation not to be noticeable (about 50secs).

A company called Trapezium Telescopes also sells a wedge for the IOptron minitower that converts it to equatorial mode for even better results. But I doubt wedges can work in Singapore, since it means the mount would have to be tilted 90deg to the sideways position - I doubt it will be very stable that way.

Good luck.

Bernard

if ur hardcore enough, can try one of those 50mm finders to do drift alignment for the astrotrac.