Getting back into Astrophotography
A few years ago I dove headfirst into Astrophotography as a hobby, picking up new gear and building skills to take photos of the night sky. I took “deep space” photos, which require some fairly specialized equipment, as well as a lot of patience, and missing out on a lot of sleep. You can see the results of my efforts at the time here: https://www.astrobin.com/users/kraegar/
In early 2017 I injured my back, and could not lift the very heavy mount for my telescope, sidelining the hobby. By the time my back had healed, other hobbies (mostly 3d printing) had taken over much of my free time, and then my job got busier when I switched companies.
I’ve finally decided to take the plunge back in to astrophotography. But I’m doing it with a focus on maximizing my reward for the time spent, so that means some new gear. The first piece of equipment to change is the camera.
Previously I was using an SBIG STF-8300M monochrome camera, with a filter wheel. With the mono camera every pixel captures the full spectrum of light. Using a filter means you get the full use of all the pixels for each color. I would use L (luminance, or full spectrum), Red Green & Blue filters, as well as occasionally a narrowband filter called an HA filter. The potential for images in this setup is very good, and in theory less time needs to be spent imaging. In practice, though, I had issues with the filters and weather that when combined would cause me to only get incomplete images I never finished.
My SBIG STF-8300M & Atik EFW2 Filter wheel attached to my telescope.
So I’m switching to a “One Shot Color” CMOS based cooled astrophotography camera. This takes pictures more like a DSLR does, where there’s a color matrix on the sensor, so it takes color photos. The matrix is RGGB, meaning each cluster of 4 pixels has one red, two green, and one blue pixel. That means, overall I’m getting “less” of each color for the same given amount of time. However, I’m guaranteed to be getting all 3 channels all the time. So, even if I don’t get quite the same level of upper potential, if weather ends my chances at a target I’ve started, at least what I did get will make a usable image.
The CMOS sensor is also extremely low noise, meaning I can take shorter exposures and still get great data. That makes guiding much less important… meaning I will lose less images to poor guiding.
The new ZWO ASI533MC-Pro attached to my telescope. The vents are for the peltier cooler, which can lower the temperature to a set point, for lower noise.
The next equipment I plan to swap out is my mount, moving to a much lighter one that will be easier for me to move around. I’ll post more on that when it arrives.
