Astronomy pictures - Telescope set up guide illustrated

If you are interested in participating in the science of astronomy and astrophotography, there are rules to follow. An example, television satellites are placed in space 22,000 miles above the Earth's equator. At this orbital altitude they travel around the earth at the same rate of speed as the ground and sea below them. This is how your satellite dish knows the exact location of each satellite because it's stationary in relation to the earth's rotation.

Your dish can now travel from and to each satellites coordinates over and over again. Your telescope works the same way with objects in space, but in the opposite direction of the earth's rotation, and must be polar aligned even for short 30 second exposures.

The first thing you need to do is to find level ground on your property away from trees and any light source preferably in a open field, you want to see plenty of sky above you and in all directions. Pick your site during the day. This way you can find hazards like holes and or rocks sticking out of the ground. You want to look at the stars, not trip and fall into your equipment, or have a unexpected trip to an emergency room. So please look for these hazards for the safety of you and your friends. I also want you to be aware that the tissue around your eyes is very tender and you can easily get a black eye. Remember you are in the dark, so lean down to the eye piece slowly. I have seen several amateur astronomers do just that. So be careful and follow the rules folks.

Imagine you're in space about 40,000 miles above the north or South Pole. Now look towards the earth, a beautiful blue and white ball, now divide it into 24 pieces like a pizza. Astronomers have divided the Sky into 24 equal parts and they call them hours. The clock starts at 0 hours in the constellation of Aries, 0 hours is also the location of the vernal equinox, and the first day of spring. The Sun will always cross the celestial equator heading North at this location.

Right ascension is expressed in hours, minutes, and seconds. Let's make an example of one of the brightest naked eye objects in the sky, The Great Orion's Nebula. Its right ascension coordinates are 05h 35m 17.3s. Now imagine a line at these coordinates that runs from the north celestrial pole to the south celestrial pole, you now know its position in the sky on a north south line. But something is wrong you still can't find it. The reason for that is a piece of the puzzle is missing which I will reveal in the following chapter.

Now lets talk about a little flaw in are 24 hour sky clock called precession. Our earth actually does not have a rotational period of 24 hours. The day is actually 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds long; this gives the stars with 3 minutes 56 seconds to play with. What do they do with this time? They advance westward in the sky a pinch less than a degree a night. They rise 3 minutes 56 seconds earlier the next night.

This is reset once every four years on February 29th, the leap year. This is right ascension explained, but before we go to the next chapter look at the Photo below. This is the right ascension setting circle on the base of the clock drive on my telescope.

The clock drive is inside and behind the right ascension setting circle. It slews the telescope 15 degree westward in the sky an hour. If properly aligned it will help you find your target on an east west line in the sky. And will track a star all night long. This allows you to take long exposures. Make sure to lock the drive in place once you have found your target.

Now imagine you at the center of the Earth. Look straight above your head where the north celestrial pole is, now put your head down and look straight ahead at the celestrial equator, now take a step backward and look straight down at the south celestrial pole. Now look at the celestrial equator again. If you look up at a object above the celestrial equator put a + sign in front of it. If you look at a object below the celestrial equator put a - sign in front of it. Ok by now you should have figured out that the north celestrial pole is + 90 degrees and the south celestrial pole is - 90 degrees, and the celestrial equator is 0 degrees.

Ok now you can come up to your home and have several glasses of the beverage of your choice. The celestrial equator is an imaginary plane that divides the earth in half at the equator and begins at a point at the center of the earth and extends out into space, even to infinity in all directions along all points on the equatorial plane. If the earth had rings like the planet Saturn it would be the perfect illustration. Just extend the rings to infinity.

Now go back to the center of the Earth again. Now look for your house. How far it is above or below the equator is called your latitude. Let say your house is +41 degrees latitude or also called a north latitude roughly the latitude of Akron Ohio.

You have to adjust your telescope according to your latitude. You can do this during the polar alignment process. Now imagine declination is like a protractor with its straight edge lined up from the north to the south poles and its round edge with all its degrees are on the surface of the earth. 0 degrees is the equator.

Ok remember the missing piece of the puzzle from the last chapter. You know that the Great Orion's Nebula is at coordinate 05h 35m 17.3s along a north south line that connects at the poles, but is it below the horizon or above? Well here is your answer. Its declination is -05d 23m 28s. Hey wait, it has a -05 degrees declination I don't think I can find it or even see it. It's below the horizon. Did I read all of this for nothing? The answer is no.

Some people new to the hobby see the - sign in front of a coordinate and they assume its below the horizon. Remember the polar alignment diagram above. Polaris is 41 degrees above the northern horizon for Akron Ohio; the northern horizon is at 180 degrees.

Now subtract 41 degrees from 180 degrees and you have 139 degrees left. Now subtract 90 degrees from 139 degrees and you have 49 degrees left. This 49 degree number is where the celestrial equator resides in the sky for Akron Ohio. So in fact you can see to a -49 degree declination. Now subtract -05d 23m 28s from 49 degrees and you have the Orion's Nebula at, 44d 37m 32s above the southern horizon at transit.

What does transit mean, it simply means an object has reached its highest point above the horizon. It can also be called the meridian, exactly halfway between the objects rise and set.
If you go outside at night and look straight up and see a star above youe head its at the same latitude you are.

Looking straight above you at this position is called the zenith, this star is at its transit position also. Below is a picture of my telescopes declination setting circle.

The declination setting circle is used for measuring and finding your targets on a north south line in the sky. And when used with star chart coordinates it can help point your telescope right on the target you wish to view or photograph. Make sure you lock the setting circle once you have found your target object.

A couple of hours before it starts to get dark set your telescope at your site you should have already picked. Point your telescope towards the north and look for Polaris. Do not connect the power until the polar alignment has been completed.
Be sure the telescope is level at the base of the tripod and the fork mount, Alt/azimuth mounts only. Use a bubble level for this. Equatorial mounts are different and you should read your owners manual if you have this type of mount.

It is important that you know your exact latitude; it is your location north or south of the equator in degrees minutes and seconds. Adjust your telescope for your latitude now.

If your telescope is level and pointing true north and you have adjusted it to your latitude, then Polaris should be in the eye piece center of view. Once you have the Polaris centered in your eye piece you have succeeded.

Now would be a good time to align your spotter scope with the telescope optics, just use Polaris, and adjust the thumbscrews on the spotter scope until Polaris is centered in the spotter scope. You're finished.

Connect the power and start stargazing.
This is a quick method for alignment and you're within .25 degrees of true polar alignment. This will give you 20 minutes before any appreciable
shift of stars on film. This is good enough for a 30 second exposure on a digital camera behind a 25mm eyepiece.

The latitude adjustment on my telescope is marked out in degrees, it's located on the inside of the wedge, lower right in the picture. And you must know your latitude for successful polar alignment, and telescope set up. Most wedges will have this latitude adjustment scale marked on the inside of the wedge.

A level tripod is a must for polar alignment. The bubble level saves time during the process. I position the level above each leg of the tripod, and check, I feel this gives me a more precise indication that the tripod is level. Check your location every session for level. Weather can cause changes.

A level fork Mount makes polar alignment quicker. And it cuts down on the amount of corrections you have to do when you're in the drift method of polar alignment. It really does. Which means you can take more photographs and view more object in a night.

A 6 inch level shows forks are level.

There are a wide variety of eyepieces available that gives you high magnification to a wide field. However remember your useable light limit. So any one of these eyepieces will work on one telescope but not another. So you need to know the focal length of your telescopes. To determine you useable light limit. So choose carefully.

Once you been in this hobby for awhile and if you get hooked, and you will, then its time to consider buying that 9mm Nagler eye piece or that 2X barlow from Meade. Both are good choices, but instead of buying direct from Meade or Celestron or Pan Optics you can save some money buying from a big camera superstore. Like Shutans Camera. Or Adorama..

The first and easiest method is called piggy back. This involves mounting a small bracket on the top rear of the telescope, and the camera mounts to the bracket. This gives the photographer ease of access to the camera and its functions. This method allows for an extremely wide field of view. You have the ability to swap out different Lens. This method also gives you the ability to track your objects in space. The following pictures show a telescope photography set up, with a dslr.

In effect you just turned your camera into a low power telescope. If you have a duel axis drive corrector, and a illuminated retical eye piece you can use the telescopes optics as a high powered manual or auto Guider.

The second method is called prime focus. This involves connecting your dslr to a t-adapter. A t-adaptor has three components. 1. The bayonet ring. 2. The body which is where the eyepiece will or won't reside depending on your application. 3. The star diagonal adaptor.

But for this application we only need the bayonet ring and the star diagonal adaptor. First connect the components, then connect your bayonet end to your dslr twist it to you hear a click sound it's now connected. Insert the star diagonal adaptor into the star diagonal. No eyepiece needed with this method because the Telescope optics is the camera lens. The photo above right shows my dslr ready for prime focus photography.

A special note you can use your t-adaptor as a barlow, this gives you a pinch more focal length, just leave out the eyepiece. This method is for dslr owners only, because they can change lens. The telescope optics is the camera lens.

The third method is called projection photography. This involves connecting your dslr to a t-adaptor with an eye piece inserted in it. The eyepiece acts like a projector magnifying the light the telescope gives you. It's relaxing and enjoyable to do astrophotography. Kind of like fishing, without the tangled lines. And the photos are rewarding.

Most point and shoot digital cameras have a manual setting. This is the setting you will use. So set your camera to this mode now, adjust your iso to its highest setting.

If you have a dslr you want to experiment with the settings, because the settings can go as high as 3600 iso, I usually use 800 iso to 1600 iso for star clusters, and nebulas. Higher settings greater than 1600 iso reveals too much camera noise. Set the camera aperture to its lowest setting which is usually 2.8, the higher this setting is the less light the camera will capture.
Set the camera white balance to day light for stars and star clusters. Set to cloudy if you have stars inside a nebula.

No guarantee you will catch the nebulas light but you have a chance.

Now set the camera flash to off. Because if you are using the projection method the light will reflect back from the eyepiece and your picture will be washed out. The objects you're photographing are light years away, and you don't need it.

Set your camera shutter speed to 30 seconds or higher if you have the ability.
Now set the camera self timer to 10 seconds, this gives the camera and scope time to settle after pressing the shutter button.

I hope these tips I have shared with you, gives you some insight. Don't be afraid to experiment with the camera settings, because conditions change its not a exact science. Good luck and good shooting.

If you want to take photos of the planets the shutter speeds settings should be from 1/2 second to 7 or 8 seconds. The full Moon is best at 1/250, if it fills the frame of the view finder. There are some advantages in using a point and shoot Camera for projection photography. The first and biggest plus is you can use the zoom function like a barlow to gain extreme magnification. Just be careful not to go beyond your useable light limit.

Look at the photo below to see a universal camera mount.

A universal camera mount comes in handy especially when used with a point and shoot digital camera. Just remember to turn the flash off when using it because the object you are photographing is either light years away or emitting and or reflecting light into your telescope. The best function of a point and shoot camera is the zoom.

My point and shoot digital camera set up for projection photography. It is a good practice to set up your point and shoot during the day with the zoom all the way out, and against the blue sky, like in the photo to the right. This way when night comes all you have to do is unclamp the eyepiece. You can use any point and shoot camera with this method, as long as it has a 1/4 - 20 threaded hole in the bottom. This is where you attach the universal camera Mount. Be careful when you clamp to a new eyepiece to leave clearance for the zoom function, because you can break the zoom function when it contact the eye piece. You now have a zoom telescope.

Since the dawn of photography we struggled to take quality photographs long before the concept of connecting a camera to a telescope ever existed. Slowly the camera and film processing began to evolve. Film processing before the digital age involved working with chemicals that were harmful to humans and the environment. The smell it produced was like working in a closet with five hundred pairs of sweaty gym sneakers.

Stacking photographs was done with the use of negatives to bring out details. However if you wanted to do astrophotogaphy, you only had two choices. You could buy a 12 exposure roll of hypersensitized film which cost around thirty dollars a roll, and exposing this film required the photographer to inject supercooled nitrogen and hydrogen onto the film while the exposure was taking place.This process was very expensive and made the film brittle and advancing the film was like doing a bios update on a computer and hoping the power didnt fail or while advancing the film it didn't break. or during processing. When you're film was exposed you could tell the lab technician to push it. The effects of pushing resulted in a doubling of the film iso. !00 iso was pushed to 200, 400 was pushed to 800 iso. But this resulted in grainy prints above 800 iso.

Digital cameras and ccd imagers are a relative newcomer to the scene. Only being around for the last ten years or so. This is an amazing new technology which gives anybody the capability to take short exposures then stack them together. You can capture light from distance galaxies, nebulas, and starclusters with just a camera a tripod and the ability to take photographs with the shutter closed. Or a lens cap that blocks 100% of all light.

I recommend you start with your point and shoot camera with no zoom or your dslr at 28mm to 50 mm lens mounted to a tripod. Set your format to raw not jpg. Limit your iso to 800 and exposures to 15 seconds. Pick a star you can focus on with the camera viewfinder then center it. Every couple of exposures recenter that same star. Try three or four light frames then a dark frame. keep repeating this process. Keep track of your light frames and your total exposure time.
Try a ten minute exposure first.

Once you start taking your photograghs you must not change any parameters durning the whole process. Focal length, exposure, aperature, every parameter must remain constant. Changing them will cause errors in the software and all your time will be wasted.

There are several type of frames you must take. But you can do it with just light and dark frames.

Light frames. These are your actual exposures. The light from the object you gathered with the camera.

Dark frames. The sensor in your digital camera produces hot pixels, they are pixels that were over stimulated during the exposure and often show up as red dots. Taking a photograph with the shutter closed or the lens capped eliminates these hot pixels by sutracting the dark frames from the light ones.

Flat frames. These can be tricky but are a must, A flat frame evens out the optical distortions caused by small dust that gathers on the cameras and or telescope optics. Im sorry its a imperfect world even the cleanest optics have dust on them its unavoidable. To take a flat frame you need a evenly illuminated object. something like the sky at dusk after sunset and before any stars are present. Or a movie screen that is illuminated by a 75 watt softlight bulb from behind you. Be careful not to cast any shadows on this screen while making you flats.. Now make these exposures. 6 to 8 seconds in length.Tough one whew!!!

There are several good stacking program available on the internet. Deep Sky Stacker. Which in my opinion is the easiest to use.Registax V.5.0 takes some knowledge of stacking parameters and settings.

These birds fly high above Sagittarius and Scorpius during the mid and late summer months. The three birds are Cygnus the swan, Aquila the eagle and Lyra the harp. Many cultures have this constellation pictured as a vulture clutching a harp. The stars in triangle are Deneb, Vega, and Altair. In 12000 years Vega will become our new north star. At a distance 26 lightyears it has a magnitude of 0.03. The objects in this asterism are M71, M39, M29, M57 NGC 6811.