Hacker News Reader

Comment by anon1253 | Hacker News Reader

Living in the Netherlands, the light pollution saddens me [1]. There are no dark places anymore. I tried astrophotograpy with a modest telescope from an inner city. With some success [2], but it requires a stunning amount of technology [3]. Still, being able to know that the night is still out there ... even if it's invisible to the eye, is simply amazing.

These days however, I remote control a telescope in Southern Spain. The difference is well, night and day [4]. But sometimes, when the clouds move ... I still setup the scope at home. Just to remind myself that the stars are still there, hiding behind the curtain of industrialization.

[1]: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2170422/Revealed-The...

[2]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/joelkuiper/31870578431/in/albu...

[3]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/joelkuiper/37078179733/in/albu...

[4]: https://www.astrobin.com/users/joelkuiper/collections/598/

View on HN

That's quite an investment. I started in amateur astronomy with a C8, film, and manual tracking via the spotting scope. It was good enough for the Orion nebula, moon and planets, but not much else.

I still have that equipment and recently pulled my scope out for the first time in more than a decade for the recent solar eclipse. I really should upgrade to modern equipment some day. But I decided I was happy just looking through my scope and leaving the photography to the pros.

What is it that's mounted above the secondary mirror of your tube? Also, is that a C11?

Yep! Hobbies I guess. It's a C8 EdgeHD, with the secondary replaced by the Hyperstar [1] which transforms the Schmidt-Cassegrain into a Schmidt camera like system (in my case 425mm f/2.1), in that configuration it's easier to trade sky noise for read noise since the sub exposures can be very short. I might one day trade it for the RASA (Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph), but I already have a 12" Newton to maintain in Nerpio!

[1]: https://starizona.com/acb/hyperstar/whatis.aspx

Thanks, I had just found the description of your setup. In case others are curious:

- Imaging telescopes or lenses: Celestron C8 EdgeHD, Starizona Hyperstar 3

- Imaging camera: ZWO ASI 1600MM-Cool

- Mount: Orion Sirius EQ-G (HEQ5)

- Guiding telescope or lens: Orion Mini Guide Scope 50 mm

- Guiding camera: Orion Starshoot AutoGuider

- Software: Adobe Lightroom , Pixinsight PixInsinght 1.8

- Filter: Baader Planetarium H-Alpha 2" Highspeed

- Accessory: Starizona Microtouch Autofocuser

If I can get your opinion on something. I have a C8 on a wedge mount with early 1990's era electronics. Do you think it's worth re-mounting that tube to upgrade to modern guiding electronics, or would you just sell the whole thing and start over? Assuming I wanted to capture deep sky objects and moderate light polution.

I'd probably swap the mount for an equatorial mount (Sky-Watcher EQ6 or similar), and use an off-axis guider, with a modern CMOS like the ZWO-ASI or one of the QHYs as imaging camera (much cheaper than the CCDs, and just as good if not better). At prime focus (i.e. without a focal reducer or Hyperstar-like system) getting pinpoint guiding with a secondary guidescope is tricky, but an OAG does wonders...starlight express makes the best in my opinion. Optically the C8 is still fine, you might want to re-collimate it, but that's a bit of an after thought. Calculating the backfocus for your optical train might be tricky. But once you have it set-up on a computerized mount (getting plate solving to work would probably also help, I can recommend Sequence Generator Pro) then you're good to go!

Thanks for the advice!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com