Very impressive my guy! I’m going to dive straight into this. I’m at college, but I have a pretty decent Newtonian telescope on an equatorial mount, and my dad has a pretty decent DSLR.... I know what I’m doing over thanksgiving break. Time to crack the books
Hey man. Really enjoy your videos and also have the Nexstar 130SLT so your videos have been really helpful! Just got myself a used 500D to modify and hopefully get some good planetary and DSO shots!
I just got the modification finished with my 130 SLT and it’s totally worth it and not as scary as it sounds. Ps my UA-cam profile picture was taken with my IPhone 11 Pro mounted to the included 25mm eyepiece on the 130 SLT, single 30 second exposure, and only post processed in the included IPhone photo software. So I’m super excited to image the moon tonight in prime focus with my Altair Astro Hypercam 183c Pro. Clear skies brother 🌌🔭
Alternative to moving the primary mirror closer is to use a shorter 'astronomy' camera-T2 adaptor. These are available. Normal adapter length puts a legacy lens at sensor focal plane distance. Telescope adapters can be only a couple of millimetres thick, moving the camera close enough to achieve prime focus; especially with mirrorless cameras where the standard adaptor will be the depth of the missing mirror-box
This is certainly true though it may be harder to get these inexpensively with color. I've heard the less expensive models do amazingly for planetary, especially with the high frame rates, though the models that I've seen people using for DSOs have all been really expensive. There's definitely the plus of also not needing a camera mod due to them (atleast to my knowledge?) Already being built for H-Alpha.
Dude you have took some bad ass pictures.. I have this same telescope and want to start taking pics. I know you got your camera for cheap so I'm wondering what cameras do you recommend I buy that will work with this scope. Obviously I'm asking cuz I'm on a budget, so yes, the cheapest camera I can buy that will still look as amazing as the pictures you have been taking. Please and thank you
If you're going for DSOs, then go with a DSLR. If you go with Canon then get something as old or newer than the Canon EOS Rebel Xsi (i.e. Canon 450d). I got mine used body only from ebay. The reason I don't advise going further back/older than that is because you really want live-view for helping focus. Do bear in mind that you will need the telescope mirror mod to get Prime Focus with this. You could alternatively use a Barlow without the mod but that would be a nightmare for someone new to astrophotography. Do make sure you check out all of the info I, and others, have on Astrophotography before you start though! If you have personal questions that you don't see answered anywhere, feel free to email me and I'll try and help as I can: (khmccaslin@utexas.edu) If you want planets and aren't interested in DSOs, then a machine learning camera (webcam style) work best because they can use some extra nice software. I have an old ZWO ASI 120MC that performed great in my last video with my 6se, but the SVBony cameras may offer a nicer price point. Don't have experience with those though so do your research if you go that route.
Thanks for the video. I just ordered a 130SLT. Looking forward to getting it. I've been looking at the sky with a pair of binoculars for years, so this is a step up. :)
Beautiful work and very inspiring what you come up with with this basic setup. You just kind of forgot to mention how many hours you spent on post-processing ... 😉. Keep it up! Ever focused on the dumbbell-nebula? I think this is also a very gratifying object for beginners like me with no astro-modified dslr.
Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) handles this. As long as it has enough alignment stars, it can stack images regardless of field rotation. I believe the minimum number is 12, but you don't want to be that low haha.
Hey, bought the same telescope and had an idea. I have an old Omegon LX3 minitrack. When you said moving the camera a bit, could i theoretically attach the tiny LX3 to the camera, as it rotates the camera without anything else and it weights barely anything? Thought that could actually work as it's mechanical and doesn't need any power, its quite accurate etc.
I just got my 130 SLT modified with the correct mirror position to be able to achieve focus with both my 25mm eyepiece and my Altair Astro Hypercam 183C Pro. So I’m super excited 😝. Is their anyway I could sent you my raw data and my post processed image so you could critique my acquisition skills and my processing? Ps tonight is going to be an all nighter imaging!
Very nice! Hope you had a good night imaging! I'd love to see what you got, though sending over more than a few files gets super heavy given the amount of data lol. I've got one of my emails and some finer details on my website: kmcaesium.com/ As for processing, I'm still trying to improve but I might have some tips.
Hi! I recently bought a second handed celestron 130 slt, I want to start taking some pics, but I am afraid to mod the mirror. Can an entry level dedicated planetary camera be used without moving the mirror?? Thanks in advance! greetings from Colombia
Hi! I've heard of other people using planetary cameras on the 130slt without a mod, but haven't been able to verify that myself as I had already modded the scope by the time I got one. So take that as you will. An entry level planetary cam would be great for the planets! but the smaller sensor may limit you a little bit in terms of Deep Space. I know there are ways to do live-stacking with planetary cams, but also haven't tried that myself yet. I wouldn't be too worried about the mod though. AstroPatio has a nice little video walk-through if you haven't already seen it: ua-cam.com/video/jDpSXPNCnS0/v-deo.html Wish I could have more firm answers for you, but I don't want to speak outside my personal experience when trying to make recommendations.
Thanks, this is very helpful. I'm just getting started with a Celestron Evolution 6 and an unmodded Nikon d5200 under Bortle 8 skies. My first couple attempts at M42 were actually very encouraging, so I'm turning next to Flame/Horsehead and Pleiades. Can you describe how many exposures, length of exposures, and ISO you used to get your photos of those targets?
I try and get atleast 1 hour aggregate light frame time. I always just stick to my 20s exposures. You really just want as long as you can get regularly without star trails. This could be different for your mount. I could for example go to 30s each but would have to throw away quite a few frames since the tracking isn't the most consistent. Hence I stick with my regular 20s. My ISO range is kind of limited since my camera is old, but I historically shoot at ISO 1600 which is the highest setting for my DSLR. The Rosette Nebula may also be a good choice. It's also a winter DSO in that area and it is bright as well.
Congratulations, great video I have a telescope like yours, I made the modification in the mirror but I have problems in tracking and aligning could you give me some tips? I want to learn how to get these beautiful colors.
Boatload of alignment and usage tips on my website: kmcaesium.com/astrophotography-with-the-celestron-130-slt/ also see my full process video:ua-cam.com/video/-s3Vc7k5E1o/v-deo.html
Yes it is possible to use the 130SLT without a camera. *For the record, you can still do visual astronomy even with the mirror position mod that I use* And if you are looking for similar scopes, the Orion Starseeker 130 is VERY similar. There are some other scopes that are a little more expensive but that is where things get a tad more specialized.
I've got a similar setup but I thought its not possible with a reflector telescope and a alt az mount. All I see is everyone using a apo refractor and equatorial mount with tracker to get these sort of images. When I attempted DSO with the slt alt az mount, felt as if the camera was making it too heavy for the mount to handle. What suggestion would you give for tracking with the slt mount?
Apochromatic refractors or Schmitt Cassigrains with an EQ mount and autoguider is definitely the proper way to do it but certainly isn't the only way. It's just the primary way that you see because it produces the best results (Unfortunately at a steep price). In my experience, the mount was able to handle it just fine though a few things may help. Shifting the dove tail back slightly in its slot would move the new mass of the camera closer to the center of the mount to better balance the load. Additionally, when you are mounting the camera itself, you want to be as minimal as possible and as close to the tube as possible. Minimizing mass obviously for the weight and minimizing distance from the tube for minimizing potential vibrations. Much of this is helped by the mirror position mod that I refer to for Prime Focus with a DSLR. Aside from that, there is always proper alignment technique to help the tracking performance. See my other videos or my plugged website for my process on that.
Thanks for a great video, I have the same celestron 130 slt. I have trouble getting focus, how to move the mirror behind, do you have a link to a page that describes how to do this. Yours sincerely Heino from Denmark
hey really nice pictures, i got the same mount but with the maksutov 127mm. I tried some astrophotography with my smartphone and a smartphone adapter. Worked better than i hoped. Now i bouht a used eos1200d, lets see what this will do
@@MrRockfish01 what is cap camera? I used a android phone which worked quite ok for brighter objects like M13 oder M27. But i recommend getting a used Eos 1000D-1200D for 60-100€. They work really well for Astrophotgraphy.
Koeber123 -I might be calling it the by the wrong name. It’s a small camera that fits over the eye piece and you hook it up to a pc or laptop with an usb cable
Wondering if what your camera captures is always what your see through the Lenz! I mean is the long exposure needed to have these bright images or you can see them with your eye trough this specific telescope?
You can not see the DSOs well through this telescope. I would say that the appearance of the DSOs through an eyepiece with this scope is similar to what I showed for a 20 - 30s exposure taken from a dark-ish site. The majority of targets simply appear as a dim haze. In order to actually see them with the eye with clarity, you need a huge telescope.
@kylemccaslin thank you for the reply. I ordered a 5MP Celestron eyepiece camera for my 130SLT telescope. I returned it since the SW seemed and worked like it was from the aera when Win95 was the hot topic! Also I couldn't use it alone my eyepieces. It had to be used as as eyepiece itself or with a Barlow!
So I love your videos and went out and got the same scope. Trying to connect my nikon d3500 to the scope, but just got pics of the mirror. Do I have to mod the mirror? I would really like to still use the telescope for just observation too.
For prime focus, i.e. focusing at the native focal length of the telescope, you need the mod. You can achieve focus if you use a barlow instead but the higher magnification makes the setup more sensitive for long exposures. Barlows work great for planetary though. With the mod you can still focus with the included eyepieces and a 2x barlow (I haven't tried anything else so I can't guarantee all eyepieces would still work). However, one of the included eyepieces got focus at maybe 90% seated and at max outter position of the focuser so you really are pushing the focuser limits afterwards for optical viewing.
Well done, mate! I am currently searching a good cost-effective Scope for both observation, lunar/planetary imaging and some DSO... Any foreign currency here in Brazil, like Euros or USD is a rip off!
Hey Kyle nice job. 2 questions: 1: was the SLT already modded here? (Mod of Chris by adding standoffs) 2: have you tried the eyepieces ? Are there difficulties to focus with those ? Thanks.
1. All of these images here are post mod 2. Yes and they still work though you are really pushing the limits of the focuser movement. The DSLR focus point is with it almost all the way in and the eye piece (only tried the included mm sizes*) focus points are at the all the way out position. One of the spots though requires the eyepiece to be like 90% seated but not fully in the adapter.
Thanks. For the mod, I removed one of the two IR filters, the one that blocks near IR because it also blocks the Hydrogen Alpha wavelength. It was a pretty invasive process since the filter is secured RIGHT infront of the camera sensor: ua-cam.com/video/-IIN0-q2WLY/v-deo.html
I think he was using a T-RING mount that attaches his camera to. I know that when Mars was at its closest, last October, I could see it with my 9mm that came with the telescope, pretty well. Also saw several moons of Jupiter that night. Wish I could have figured how to attach a camera at the time. Would have been quite the shots.
I am indeed using a T-ring to attach the camera directly (as just some guy Yelling mentions), meaning the camera is using the telescope itself as a lens, no eyepiece involved. You should be able to get decent views though optically with eyepieces. Magnification is important for planets so use a barlow if you can. The views should looks somewhat similar to those in my planetary video: ua-cam.com/video/T9-94B2-K8c/v-deo.html
Thank you for this video! Very nice to see that you can take nice photographs without spending thousands. I want to buy a new telescope and mount. I have the ETX-80 but I am very disappointed. The chromatic aberration is terrible and the mount is super noisy. It sounds like R2D2 and because I am using in on my balcony I am disturbing the neighbours. I am thinking of buying a Celestron nexstar SLT 5 (Schmidt-Cassegrain) with a focal reducer. I have a question about the Celestron SLT mount, is it noisy when it is tracking?
The mount is basically silent when tracking and pretty quiet when slewing. I've worked with a ETX-80 and know exactly what your talking about. R2D2 sound is pretty spot on. The Schmidt-Cass mount is a little higher quality so that may preform even better but I should warn you that using an altaz's alignment system on a balcony may not be optimal. At least for the 130 SLT, and I assume the other Celestron systems, it wants you to use stars as far apart as possible for the alignment. The farther apart the stars, the better the accuracy of the alignment. At my normal site which has no major obstructions, I use 20s exposures. This is a safe exposure duration where I don't get any trailing on a good alignment. I could go up to 30s but unless the alignment is flawless I will get some trailing in some images, have to throw them out, and thus reduce my effective shooting time. So I stick with the aforementioned 20s. On my balcony, the range is 15-20 instead of 20-30. My balcony has about 120 degrees of the sky and 240 degrees blocked by the building. Its not a deal breaker but do be aware that I took those images from a dark obstruction free site. The higher quality mount of the Schmidt-Cass scopes probably track better but that may be offset by the higher focal length. A focal reducer sounds like a good idea imo. On the other hand, EQ Polar scopes may be a pain to align if you can't see Polaris from your balcony. Plus the computerized ones are much more expensive. Glad my video helped! Feel free to hit me up with any more questions and I'll try to answer them the best I can.
Kind of. Since the focal length is 1250mm on the 5slt but the mount is tue same, you will need to decrease your exposure time to avoid star trails. This can make both storage and noise reduction a bit harder. Also do be wary of light pollution, I normally drive out a little ways to get to darker skies, not sure what the bortle level for you is.
I don't have any personal experience with mirror-less cameras so I am unsure whether or not you'd need the focus mod... First though, let me ask. Have you tried wide field? Like Milky-way Photography? That's the easiest way to dip your feet in.
@@kylemccaslin Yes, I have done enough Milky Way photography, I want to make the jump to deep space photography, I just wanted to know about the focusing of the telescope, I have a Canon T3i but I am not sure how to set up a telescope in which I have to make modifications to what approach
@@kylemccaslin Ok friend, I'm going to ask for it and I'll start taking photos with both cameras and if not, I'll settle for taking videos of the moon with my cell phone.
Question... So the images you’re showing.. Is the quality increased, equal, or decreased, compared to if i were to just look through the telescope lens in person? & if there’s a difference between what you see on your computer and what you see through the telescope what is it?
The short answer is that your eye is better for bright things like planets, the core of Andromeda, and the core of Orion Nebula. But the cameras allow you to see things you can't with your eye. The long answer is that there is a difference here between what you can see and how well you can see it (detail/resolution). WHAT can be seen by the eye through the lens on this scope is roughly equivalent to a 20s exposure through this scope. However, the eye is going to be better than almost all cameras in terms of detail/resolution of what is actually being seen. What makes the computer and camera more capable and able to produce the greater images in this case is Time. Your brain processes what is received by the eye instantly where as with cameras we can add together these shorter exposure images into a single longer exposure one. Increasing the time allows us to capture and stack more photons from dim sources in order to see objects that are otherwise too dim to be instantaneously.
I would love to see a video of how you compensate for field rotation with camera rotation on the telescope. Do you take a 30 second exposure and then usually have to adjust for field rotation in between shots, or can you get away with like 10 or so pictures before dealing with field rotation? Im sorry if its a really nooby question lol :). Thanks in advance
So since the earth's rotation is the cause of the field rotation, the rotation is a constant and does not change based on what altaz mount you use, The earth rotates at a rate of approximately 0.25 Degrees per minute so we need to rotate the camera in it's adapter/socket in the same direction at the same average rate. Now does this mean you need to do it after every picture? No, that would be overkill and would likely result in you messing up the tracking accidentally if your touching the scope at some point. My rule of thumb is for a large object, do some minor rotation (~3.75 Deg) every 15 minutes or so. If you're imaging a small object that doesn't fill up the full frame, then you may not need to worry about it at all. When you drop your images into the stacking software, it will align all of the images to lay over eachother properly. The field rotation correction is simply to maintain the correct framing. Hopefully that helps?
@@kylemccaslin Thanks for the awesome answer that helped clear up so much for me :). Keep making awesome videos man I have been learning a lot from them. Its awesome when you are able to find someone with the same setup as you online :), I ordered everything to mod my 130slt to prime focus as well so no more pesky barlows lol or non full frame pictures. I cant wait to apply this to my next clear night. Thanks again and Clear skies my friend!
@@fabiogervasi982 you just kind of gain a feel for how much it is. You can use the stars in the frame as a reference to make sure your going about the correct amount. So no I never used a protractor.
Hi! I've been interested in getting one of these telescopes and I was wondering if the camera has to be a DSLR to get images like this. Is it possible to use a phone mount and use an app like deep sky camera to manually get the iso, focus, exposure, ect you need for photos. Pls help!
Its not a long term solution. Some phone cameras are going to perform alright for starters to test. A phone on a mount with an app and specific settings should be able to get you the biggest brightest stuff like Andromeda and the Orion Nebula albeit very zoomed out. The core is pretty nice on a good phone as well but that may be rough from light polluted areas. Doing much else will require a telescope that tracks and a DSLR. The telescope is for the optical quality (the more light catching ability the better), the tracking mounts enable long exposures (which enables more light catching ability via time, and noise reduction effects), and the DSLR provides a large sensor with LOW noise. Other things can get you some of the way but aren't long term solutions. Can elaborate if necessary
There is some periodic error, its just insignificant enough that its not noticeable in most of my 20s exposures. How well it tracks is really dependent on how well you do your alignment: spot on bubble level, very far apart (as far apart as possible) alignment stars, excellent centering of stars during alignment, minimizing introduced backlash. While the periodic error in each frame is low, it does accumulate such that I do need to adjust the telescope back on target every once and a while. Maybe each hour or so. There technically is both rotational error and translational error but in my experience at least, 20s is a good duration at which a strong majority of your images don't have any noticeable error.
Hi, was looking at getting the same telescope (total new beginner), what budget camera would you suggest? I was looking at an astro camera SVBONY SV105 or SV205 or similar. Do I need a SLR if I want to take nebulas pics? Thanks
I personally don't actually have any experience with the webcam-style dedicated astrocameras. I hear they are generally IR-ready but can't attest to their effectiveness at the lower price point. What I did was just find a used Canon EOS 450d (Rebel Xsi) on ebay and snagged it (body + battery only) for about $64. That has worked out for me pretty well. I did the astromod on my own which may be a bit deep for some people though. The mod isn't necessary for nebula but does help alot for H-Alpha. That's about as much feedback I can give. I'd definitely recommend asking a bunch of the Astro-UA-camrs or maybe the forums for some more detail, people in the community are generally pretty helpful.
Are the images high-res enough to crop the extra triangles from field rotation off, and still look good? All in all, these images look very good for the setup. I ordered this telescope last night and was pleasantly surprised on how your images turned out without the EQ mount, I was nervous about not having that. Also, besides DeepSkyStacker, what other astrophotography-specific software did you use? (Besides Photoshop and what not) Lastly, what were your camera settings around for most of these shots? Either way, great job!
The images are pretty high res. I'd say the bigger issue is the noise. That said since its a ~5' aperture and relatively widefield, its not stellar at resolving tiny things. The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) or Thor's Helmet (NGC 2359) are about as small as I would go. I actually haven't tried out any astrophotography specific software other than DSS. I hear BackyardEOS is excellent but don't have any experience with it personally. I do use Stellarium and Telescopius for planning. Telescopius has a very handy "Telescope Simulator" that helps you get the framing of the images the way that you want. Locating stars around dim objects and what not. As far as camera settings go, I generally use the 20s exposures. That is the highest that I can get reliably without star trails for the mount. ISO is 1600. RAW format of course.
@@mxGlass I would give it a shot with the filter still in. I don't know the specifics about the A6000's IR cut filter but it will be usable regardless of whether you mod it or not. Atleast for my Canon 450D, the purpose of removing the filter was to allow more of the Hydrogen Alpha (Ha+) to pass. A lot of the nebula have a good amount of hydrogen alpha so it helps with the contrast for them. For galaxies and bright/high magnitude nebula it doesn't matter too much. Since the summer stuff is coming up, I would suggest shooting the Lagoon Nebula and its neighbors like the Eagle Nebula. That should give a good impression of how well it can image bright to moderately bright things. Then if you want to mod it later you can.
So this telescope actually does have tracking but it is open loop and dependent on your initial alignment. Basically, it knows where it is and where to move based on your inputted info at the start and during alignment, but if you bump it, then it will lose track of where it is. I elaborate a bit on this in the full process video and on my website (Kmcaesium.com). If you have more questions, you can reach me on my email which is also on my website. Do be aware though, for DSOs, I am using a Primary Mirror Position Mod to get Prime Focus with my DSLR. It isn't complicated but figure I should mention again.
The 450D is still an alright camera. The reason I went with it was that its the cheapest Canon DSLR that still has Live-View. Trying to get focus without that can be really rough. Got mine for about $65 used, body only, from Ebay. If you can, a camera with a flip out screen or higher pixel density will treat you better. As for the moon, it's an alright scope. I haven't done too much lunar with it though. For the best lunar stuff, you actually want to do composites of a series of zoomed in lucky images. And to protect your sensor, you will want a lunar/moon filter. That's a 1.25" that should hopefully mate to your T-Adapter assembly (kind of like a barlow) if you are using a DSLR.
@@kylemccaslin I am thinking to get and ZWO ASI instead a DSR, but I am not sure about which one get and I don’t want to spend more than $300 on it. By chance do you have any ZWO to recommend me or even another brand?
@@alvarofigueiro1606 I do! I actually got a ZWO ASI 120MC recently, though it is an older model. It works really well for planetary-type targets, the moon included. It kind of breaks down to what you're aiming to image: If you're going for planetary, then the machine learning ones can't be beat, but if you want to shoot DSOs, I'd prefer the bigger sensor size and flexibility of a DSLR. FYI, sensor size in this case determines how wide your maximum field of view is on a given telescope.
@@alvarofigueiro1606 there may be decent cheaper machine learing cameras at a cheap price point, but unfortunately I don't have any experience with anything other than that ZWO ASI 120MC
@@kylemccaslin thank you very much for the attention! One last question. I am thinking to get a ZWO camera because it take less attention of my wife (laughing hard 🤣) but i am not sure about one thing. Will I still need to make the mood with my 130 SLT in order to use a ZWO camera? I liked the ASI585 and with a reducer I can get good photos of M31 (at least technically)
Thanks for the info and great video, I just purchased the Sky Watcher Virtuoso 90mm hopefully to use it with Lumix G9, maybe I should have watched your video :) what are your thoughts about the Sky Watcher? thinking sending it back and get the Celestron 130SLT.
Don't have experience with the virtuoso, but they seem to be very different scopes. It kind of depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it. Like you want to go after: Planetary, Lunar, DSOs, or Terrestrial targets? Or if you already have lenses for your Lumix G9 and are looking to do wide field. Theres also the heft and setup differences - like how the 130slt is likely heavier but has tripod legs. And whether or not you are getting to GoTo part of the virtuoso. Plus your lighting conditions and whatnot. For the kind of stuff that I shoot, it does require "long" exposures though and I don't know what results would be like at certain focal lengths. It's really hard for me to comment without experience with the virtuoso and I don't want to lead you astray.
iso 1600 and 20s exposures/shutter speed. The exposure time depends on how well you can align the scope. Use very far apart stars for this alignment for the best results. Also see my full process video for more details.
You should be able to do planetary to a similar quality with your 130EQ. But for the DSO stuff, I don't really think its realistic. The DSO stuff requires long exposures which requires tracking, to a degree that is basically impossible to do by hand. If you can motorize the mount then maybe? I don't have any experience with those auxiliary motors though.
@@kylemccaslin Alright. No I came to the same conclusion after reviewing people's experiences with the 130EQ. Do you recommend the 130SLT as a beginner telescope for DSO? For me the 130SLT is a bit on the pricier side. Maybe you know a decent telescope for the DSO stuff for 200 - 400 dollar? (euro in my case) You make really nice video's btw, explaining how to use telescopes and work with astrophotograpy!
Im trying to get into taking pictures through a telescope, I'd love to take some pictures like you have. Can you explain how you set up the camera for this. Do you just take a picture with a 20 second exposure over and over again? Then you put them in a software and layer them all together? Please help me out, I love your work.
Yup, it is alot of 20s exposures stacked on top of one another to build contrast in the image. Optimally, you would want to do longer exposures but that is limited by your tracking quality. A free software called Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) does the stacking for you after you and then lets you adjust the resulting image histogram to bring out the details. I've got a little bit more detail on my new website that may help. Didn't want to do videos for all of the info since some of it would be a bit dry. Check out the Astrophotography section. kmcaesium.com/
hey dude niceeeeee job i luv it, i want to buy one telescopy and this one is one of my options. then thats why i write u. i want to know exactly what did u used for took those pics. and i wanna ask u how ist for see the planets, do u have any pics for show me¿¿
I mostly have just stuck to nebulae and galaxies so I don't really have an planetary images to show you. This scope is a bit wide field for planets. If your looking specifically for planetary or lunar there may be better options. Higher focal lengths are a bit better for planets since planets are so small. If you did want to use this scope for planetary, you would definitely want a Barlow Lens. That should multiply the magnification. Barlows can impose distortions in the view though so look at all the reviews. Also it may be important to note that I take almost all of my pictures from a dark spot. This doesn't really matter for planetary but if your interested in DSOs then a filter would probably be needed to get similar results.
I wanna do those kind of pics that u taken. Also I would like to see the planets. I wonder. For u took those pics what did u use. I mean the telescope and something else? Some lens or whatever? And for see the planets I will need a Barlow. And what else. Or only Barlow is enough????
I've been using my phone to shoot very fast exposures with an unguided 8" dob. I get decent pictures of the planets, but want to do longer exposures to see fainter objects. Would a phone camera be sensitive enough to pick up nebula with 30 second exposures? My phone can save as raw if that helps. Im also already familiar with stacking which I assume I would need. I just dont want to have to buy a scope and camera at the same time.
You phone may work but would likely not be that great. I'm sure you already know how rough it can be getting the phone in a proper position to take good pictures on your dob. The more difficult thing here is that the big "bright" DSOs that you'd shoot are actually really big and you take up a lot of the frame. I know for my phone camera atleast that the noise drastically increases as you move away from the center of each image. With DSOs, since they are so faint, noise is the main issue. Yes stacking will 100% be required here and Raw is a good idea though I've had varying results with Raw on my phone. Basically, there's a lot of stuff working against you here but I'd say it's still probably do-able. Do get other opinions though, my experience with the phone on the telescope for DSOs is rather limited. As far as cheap DSLRs goes, I actually got mine used off of ebay so they may be less expensive than you might think?
The mod (ua-cam.com/video/jDpSXPNCnS0/v-deo.html&feature=emb_logo) moves up the primary mirror and pushes the focal point out a bit so that you can achieve focus with a DSLR. This isn't necessary if you use a webcam style dedicated camera like those used for planetary, it is meant for DSLRs. The mod still allows you to use the included eyepieces with a 2x barlow (I've tested these, more may be ok but I am not sure). Focus for one of the eyepieces does require it to not be 100% seated in the adapter after the mod, which isn't really an issue but proves that the mod pushes the bounds of the focuser. The DSLR astromod (dslrmodifications.com/rebelmod450d1.html) is rather intensive and is non-reversible. It was an easy choice for me since I bought a used 450d for cheap but it is obviously up to you. The mod will vary based on the camera but the guy covers a lot of canon models. But first, what are you looking for in a telescope? DSO Astrophotography? Planetary Astrophotography? Optical Viewing? Are you in heavy light pollution (www.lightpollutionmap.info/)? Is the budget tight?
Hi Kyle, my intervalometer is only taking one photo despite the settings I have it on. Is there any camera settings I may have incorrect that would be causing this?
I'm not really sure how I can help here. The shutter release I use is just a simple button with a toggle switch. My camera is in single shoot manual mode.
How are you getting your mount to track? I have the Orion starseeker 130mm which is basically the same as yours. It does the go to feature but I can’t get it to track the object.
It should just be tracking after you go to the target. The quality of the tracking is going to depend on your alignment but if your able to get on target using the goto function, then your alignment should be ok. One thing though is that after you goto a target, it may take a minute for the tracking to effectively start. Depending on how the scope slewed to the target, it may need to overcome some gear slosh. On my scope, if the target is moving in the opposite direction from where the motors just slewed, it takes maybe 40 seconds. If it's not that then I'm not really sure whats up.
@@kylemccaslin thanks man, I’ll have to give it a shot and see what happens. Thanks for always being so responsive. I’m sure I’ll have more questions in the near future.
hi kyle loved the video really inspired me to go out and take images with my setup too...the thing i was asking was were all these images taken from the bortle 4 level area u were talking about because in one shot u mentioned city light suppression or some other word just curious
Just about all of these are from the bortle 4 place. One of the flame nebula images is from the city with a City Light Suppression Filter. There are some processing techniques to get the images in the city with the CLS filter similar to the darker sky images. I'm not adept at that yet but there are plenty of other astrophotography youtubers that shoot from city lights that have great tutorials for the processing
many people told me that , whit celestro 130. cant take pictures more longer than 10 minutes, then they said if i want to take pictures more longer than 10 minutes that i will need a ecuatorial telescopy , is that truth?? im not sure which one to buy if celestron130. or skywatcher reflector150/750 eq3 goto. what u think is better??? i would like , also see some planets, im not sure if with this telescopy that im telling u i can see something, i would like to see detyles. what u think???? explaing me please
I wouldn't recommend it for DSOs. The focal length is really high on that OTA and I don't think the mount can support long exposures that zoomed in. The zoom works well for planetary, but when it comes to DSOs it's kind of a mixed bag. Higher zoom (under your telescope's optical limit) will get you higher resolution, but it dilutes the light per pixel and requires better tracking due to the higher sensitivity. I don't think you'd have a good time trying to get nebulae with that model.
@@stevenfuller9249 There are quite a few options on getting nebulae and galaxies, especially if you are willing to go somewhat wide field. You absolutely need decent enough tracking (for your focal length) to allow for long exposures. So if you have a wide-field setup, then you can get away with lower quality tracking. That said, there are a few routes: You can use a startracker with a DSLR or smaller OTA and do some really nice wide-field stuff. Many DSOs are quite big and this is a good way to start using Equatorial mounts - the best type of mount for Long Exposure Astrophotography. That said, since these typically can't take heavy loads, it may be a little more difficult to get some good planetary images, though certainly possible. Secondly, you could opt for a Alt-Az Mount & OTA. These are really common and a little more intuitive to understand, but can be a bit of a patchwork solution. In this range, I'd either go with something with a good aperture that is pretty zoomed out (650mm Focal Length) like the 130slt, or something BIG and solid like a 8SE. DO BEWARE however that if you go the 130slt route like I did, it did require a mod for me to get focus with my DSLR. AltAz mounts also aren't meant for long exposure stuff in that they don't compensate for field rotation like Equatorial mounts do. If you're willing to give them the time though, the scopes I mentioned can do reasonably well for both DSOs and Planets, with the 8se having a great OTA that can be put on a Equatorial mount if you want to upgrade from there. Lastly, there's the deep pockets route - A Go-to Equatorial mount with a large Schmitt-Cassigrain OTA (Newts and Refractors are both great too but Schmitt-Casses are a great all around package). This is what the best amateur astronomers use, but these come at a steep price. And technically, if you're really more interested in optical astronomy, a Dobsonian will get you the best Aperture per dollar. Dobs are fantastic for that since Aperture is king in astronomy, but they are of course manual setups, so no automated tracking. I hope that helps? If you're willing to put in the time, there are alot of different setups that you can make work, but in general you should keep your eye out for good tracking and big aperture, and I'd stay away from telescopes with long focal lengths if they don't have excellent tracking (if you're interested in DSOs). As always, there are plenty of really helpful people in the astronomy community and plenty of people with helpful videos that may help you better understand the specifics of each route, especially since none of us have done it all.
Hello i have a question im not sure if you can help me or not any help would be appreciated. I recently did the prime focus with this telescope and have the t ring plus 2x barlow for focusing but im having a issue where when i try and focus it. It will almost focus but not quiet my camera is a canon rebel t5. Im just stumped on what to do
When you say you did the Prime Focus do you mean you moved the primary mirror? The "Almost focus but not quite sounds like the focal point for the assembly isn't in the range. If it is just outside, you can always use the set screws to hold the barlow further out where it isn't fully seated. I'm not sure what you mean by hard to line up the stars though. Is this all for planetary? Barlows for DSO Astrophotography isn't a great idea but for planetary it is fine. Could you elaborate a little bit?
@@kylemccaslin i was using the barlow lens for planetary but i was wondering also what i need for dso? I have been looking around but cant find a good answer i did collimate it so im pretty sure thats what fixed it
@@12andrewrules so the larger DSOs are actually really big so the native focal length is actually pretty good. Generally for DSOs, since they are so dim, you dont want to be using a barlow. Barlows reduce image depth but increase magnification/detail. They are good for planetary since the planets are so small and bright but for DSOs where your already starved for light, not so much. For DSOs a good spot to start would be you big bright ones. Lagoon, Trifid, and Andromeda are some good ones up now.
Curious, what does it look like when just staring through the eyepiece? Does it look anything like that or is it just a sheet of stars against a black backdrop?
The Orion nebula looks a bit like that 20s sub I showed before the stacked image. Alot of DSOs aren't visible in real time though unless you've got a huge aperture in a dark spot.
You can still with the default/included eyepieces (those are all i tested, might not work for others*). You are however pushing the outer limits of the focusser (post-mod) when doing so. Meaning that for one of the eyepieces, I could only achieve focus visually when the eyepiece was not completely inserted into the adapter (maybe 85% inserted instead of 100%). So it still functions fine, though there are some quirks.
@@kylemccaslin Thank you! Looking for parts to mod mine over the next couple of days. Any parts list? The linked video shows links to a company pretty far away and has high shipping cost.
So let's see if I got it right. Because of the fact that this telescope is not equipped with an equatorial mount you had to slightly rotate each frame in order to obtain a clear object? I'm asking because I just got the same exact telescope you have and everyone in astronomy groups is like "YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE TO DO DEEP OBJECTS PHOTOGRAPHY" lol I'd be so grateful if you'd answer
So based on the quality of the tracking, I am able to get 20s exposures with no star trails at native focal length (no trails due to rotation and no trails due to tracking issues). The rotation part of this comes in when you are imaging bigger object that fill the frame. If they fill the frame, and the frame us naturally rotating, it will rotational drift over time. That rotational drift is what usually needs to be corrected for on Altaz mounts. I take a ton of these 20s frames and stack them together with stacking software like DSS and if there is no trails in the individual images, then DSS will align and composite the images together into a single clear one. This isn't the easiest way to do DSOs but you definitely still can. This is largely thanks to the awesome stacking software that has come out over the last 10 or so years.
@@kylemccaslin thanks a lot, as I said people often avoid to mention there are ways to adapt with the equipment you have. I guess spending thousands of euros in accessories shuts your mouth about less conventional procedures lol but it's undeniable that results like yours are admirable. Thanks again
For DSOs not really. DSOs realistically require "long" exposures and you won't be able to turn the knob at a slow and constant rate to track it with your manual mount. If you really wanted to you could try it with maybe 1 second exposures on the orion nebula or andromeda core but its not going to be a very good experience. This doesn't mean that you can't do Planetary though if your interested in that.
Probably one of Celestron's Nexstar SEs. They are generally of higher quality and you wouldn't have to mod or anything. In that similar price point though you may be able to snag a goto equatorial mount. The EQ mounts are designed for astrophotography so that may be a better route if that's your sole aim.
Field rotation is inherent to alt-az mounts so no amount of realignment of the telescope or translation of the FOV is going to address it. The only way to compensate on an alt-az mount is camera rotation, which could be automated but at that could get tough. Might as well go Equatorial at that point (Equatorial inherently compensating for field rotation). I'm not sure if that answers your question?
Hello. I wanna ask u what u think about this cam for long pics dark sky . Cannon eos 1100D Cuz I need to buy a cam but I will buy a used one. For start. This cam I found it to 140 euros
Equatorial mounts allow for very long exposures because they account field rotation. Field rotation is a really slow movement though, roughly 360 Degrees per 24hrs, so you can use short enough exposures to where you don't notice any rotation in a single frame. So by keeping my exposures shorter but drastically increasing the number of exposures, I can get these images. 180x20s exposures can get me a comparable result to 4x15m exposures, though longer exposures are better for noise reduction. Basically, it isn't optimal to use a AltAz mount for this but it is doable.
@@cikkine I was referring to equivalent aggregate time with shorter exposures: you could stack 180 separate 20second exposures to get something comparable to a stack of 4 separate 15 minute exposures. Longer individual exposures is optimal but stacking the shorter ones into a single image allows setups like mine to work.
You can probably use it for planetary and lunar. You should be able to get the bands of Jupiter & probably the spot, and the rings of saturn & maybe the Cassini division. For DSOs however, I don't think it's very possible. The focal length of the scope is really long relative to the aperture as well as the aperture itself being small.. That makes DSOs exceedingly difficult. You could try to take a picture of the Orion Nebula or maybe the core of Andromeda, but not much else.
I am a beginner so I have a very important question and that is how i do long exposures with the 130 slt. I would be nice if anyone had a answer he could tell me
You need to attach a camera and take some ~20second exposures with the scope tracking the target. For me, I used a DSLR attached to the focuser. I needed to modify the telescope slightly to get focus with this DSLR though. If your alignment is good, then you should be able get 20s exposures on the 130slt without star trails. 20 seconds is not long at all when you talk about "long exposures" in astrophotography, but if we stack them into something much longer. I have a guide video explaining my process: ua-cam.com/video/-s3Vc7k5E1o/v-deo.html The video doesn't include how to do the mod, but "AstroPatio" has a video walking through that modding process.
@@kylemccaslin thats nice to hear!! should i use a t2 to 2 inch adaptor? because i feel like the sensor is so big that the 1.25 adaptor that goes to prime is so small for the sensor
Nice video. Did you try any imaging using your eyepiece on a T Ring? Im kinda sketched out moving the primary mirror. Do you have discord, if so would you mind adding me? I'd like to ask you a few questions. VelocityFTW#3820
I did use a lens on it after I moved the primary in order to test if I could still use it for direct optical. I remember it working but don't recall which lens I used. I'll give it a shot again when I can. Yes I have a discord. Friend Request sent.
I believe it is parabolic, but there is a bit of confusion out there on if it is or not. Celestron unfortunately isn't clear on this and doesn't mention it on their page. Some retailers claim, like B&H, say parabolic though.
So long as the camera is new enough that you have live view, you should be OK. Modern DSLRs (I'm typically talking Canon & Nikon) are all pretty low on noise. Going for a more expensive camera could theoretically get you more resolution, but smaller pixels may actually have a trade off in that less light is collected by each pixel. There's some funky stuff there that I'm also not even sure about. I think there are a few things that I eye more than just cost and image resolution. The light filtering is pretty important for capturing nebulae, particularly the Hydrogen Alpha wavelength. To get that in my setup, I removed a near Red filter which ruins the camera for normal use by disrupting the white-balance. I am comfortable doing that on a cheap DSLR, but not an expensive one if you get what I mean. And there are some other things like how well it continuously shoots, etc. So I tend to like cheap but "modern".
@@adammadi9109 It does make a big difference. You can still do astrophotography, but you would want some kind of city light suppression filter. It simulates having a darker sky but requires a bit of additional post processing to get the correct colors back. For that post processing I would have to refer to the other content creators as I am nowhere near as good at that as they are.
@@kylemccaslin ok thanks! I am planning on buying a gosky light pollution filter. people say it's pretty good at blocking out light pollution, but im a bit skeptical.
@@adammadi9109 sounds alright. Just make sure you do all of your research. For example, for this scope in order for it to get good tracking you generally need alignment stars that are very far apart, opposite preferably. Basically you its not great if you are shooting from a place with a lot of obstructions either. My website lists a bit of factors and considerations that I thought about but certainly get all of the opinions that you can! (Kmcaesium.com)
The optical train is a little different and the specs favor the 130slt a little bit, such as the aperture, but yes you should be able to DSO astrophotography with the 4se as well
I would primarily only go for the brightest targets though as that aperture difference does matter. Things like the Orion Nebula, Andromeda, Lagoon Nebula, Trifid Nebula, Pleiades, Flame Nebula, etc.
Yes, though I had to do a mod on it to allow it to use a DSLR at the native focal length. These are also stacked images so they are the aggregate of a few hours each, not representative of what you can see in real time.
@@Reooq In real time through the eyepiece, you can't really see any nebulae. You can se the cores of the brightest ones like Orion, but not much else. Only with the largest telescopes in the darkest of skies can you see the nebulae with your eye. This telescope is 400 - 650 USD new, but the used market for telescopes is also pretty good. Hopefully that answers your questions?
Great video, thanks! Very helpful. Just curious- I'm planning on trying the prime focus mod... Does that affect your ability to use the telescope for regular viewing? Or would you have to reposition the mirror to go back to regular viewing instead of photography?
You can still do regular viewing with the included eyepieces (haven't tested other ones out). That said, to get focus with one of them, you have to max out the focuser and then have the eyepiece not 100% fully seated. 2x Barlows still work as well but again you may not be 100% seated. So yes, pretty much.
I think you may be referring to the F/stop setting on some cameras when using a lens but since I use the telescope as the lens in my set up I can't change the F/stop in the same way. It could be changed using some additional equipment though. A 2x barlow would double the F/Stop ex from F/5 to F/10. A reducer would have the opposite effect. However, the faster the scape that you have the more you may need to worry about coma. Generally speaking though the faster the F/stop the better. F/4 for example would be better than F/8.
@@kylemccaslin I meant to delete this comment, I realized that this was a dumb question. (When using a telescope) Thank you for the info anyway, as well as all the help you offered previously. I might have more questions in the near future, I have her all set up now but every single night all week has been extremely cloudy. Feels bad. Have yet to do the prime focus mod yet, but when I can finally test I will probably need to. Thanks again! You've been so helpful.
Hey Kyle. really helpful content. Thank you for sharing I have 130SLT and like to do some astrophotography with my Canon 60D. I have tried to follow this www.cloudynights.com/topic/812897-celestron-130-slt-modified-for-prime-focus/ 3D printed out three primary mirror holder. Still not able to get focus on my Canon 60D. am I missing something here. thanks for you help in advance
Hard to say exactly. I used this guide: ua-cam.com/video/jDpSXPNCnS0/v-deo.html I would say that be cautious of what you 3D print with. If the material is thin and under load, it could creep which could eventually prevent collimation. For example, I had a PLA gear for a barn-door tracker that crept to failure. On that still being unable to get focus, how are you mounting the camera? are you using a direct adapting route like "Solution #2" in that cloudy nights post, or are you trying something else?
@@article7442 I think you need to mount the camera closer i.e. like done in solution 2. The mod that I used, which is different but looks to be a similar distance, uses the same closer focus position. You should just be able to screw your T-Ring in with the stuff you currently have tho.
Yeah thats a bit... maybe there's a used market? You still do have a few good options if you want to get into astrophotography though! Star trackers might be more avaliable or atleast have a better price. You would have to get a separate lens/OTA though as the Star trackers are only the base. They are generally better for wider field stuff.
Kyle McCaslin welp like 2weeks ago i bought astromaster 130 but its not computized so hard to find objects so i was thinking of buying new computerized scope
@@FINSuomenPoika I had a dobsonian briefly and it was super hard for me to find stuff too. Plus if your looking for DSOs, almost all of them are too dim to be seen in real time unless your at like a bortle 2 with a decent aperture. You really need some kind of tracking too if your looking to so non-wide field astrophotography of DSOs. That is what lets you go to longer exposure lengths to get that longer aggregate time easier. If your just doing visual astronomy though then computerized is a bit overkill. All of the stuff your theoretically looking at should be bright enough for you to find with the help of your Finder Scope.
Real Time, it's much closer to what you see at 3:40 (if not a bit less than that). Your mileage is still going to vary though depending on the darkness and weather you are viewing from. You can see the core of the Orion Nebula and the Core of Andromeda, but most DSOs look like hazy blobs real time. That's true for all but the biggest scopes though. That's kind of why I like the photography element - because you can resolve more by integrating time. There's not a whole lot to the Stacking and Processing though and plenty of videos on it. Also plenty of ways to start Astrophotography, the simplest being wide field with a DSLR and lense.
Hey, i have a nexstar slt 130 to, does it auto track i want to take a pic of orion nebula do you have and recommendation of exposure time and how long for.
It does auto track, given that you have aligned it. Do beware of backlash though. If the mount reverses direction in either axis, there is slosh in the gears so it may not appear as though its tracking once you get in target. It may take several seconds for the mount to overcome it. Good choice of starting targets. If you have the prime focus mod, are using a DSLR, and are using my guidelines for proper alignment, then 15 seconds per exposure would be good. If you don't have the prime focus mod and are instead using a Barlow, then it'd atleas halve that - more towards 5 seconds per exposure. Total exposure is just the longer the better. I cap out at 3 hrs tho since thats quite a bit of time.
@@Snailstolemysoul it's only DIY solutions lol. So first off, the Prime Focus mod is crucial if you want to really want to use this scope more than just a one-off. The mod moves the mirror forward and let's you get focus with a DSLR ( which is impossible normally due to the backfocus (how far back the sensor is from the front of the camera)). This let's you image at Prime Focus i.e. 650 mm focal length which is the native length of the scope. There is a video that shows how to do this. Aside from that, if you are siming for Nebula and are willing and able to dedicate and mod a camera, you can remove the Near IR filter from a DSLR to capture more wavelengths, especially the Hydrogen Alpha Wavelength. There are guides for this as well.
Very impressive my guy! I’m going to dive straight into this. I’m at college, but I have a pretty decent Newtonian telescope on an equatorial mount, and my dad has a pretty decent DSLR.... I know what I’m doing over thanksgiving break. Time to crack the books
Nice! I have a motorized telescope and my sister has a DSLR so Im very excited!
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These look fantastic, thanks for sharing your passion Kyle.
Great job. Seriously impressed. liked and subscribed.
Really like the Flame and Horsehead nebula shots. Very good work!
Wow you’re good at this. I just ordered one and will check out your videos again. Thank you!
Hey man. Really enjoy your videos and also have the Nexstar 130SLT so your videos have been really helpful! Just got myself a used 500D to modify and hopefully get some good planetary and DSO shots!
Glad you liked them and best of luck!
Well done with AZ mount!
Great video, really helps the beginners and explained with pictures than complicating.
Super cool! Was looking for a new telescope and ended up on this model and this page. I think this seals the deal. Thanks!
Real quick, what are you looking to do with your scope. I may be able to make some recommendations or clarifications.
For the record, my methodology should be able to be done with most goto scopes. It does require a mirror position modification to do it on this one.
Beautiful pictures. Thank you for the video.
I just got an 130slt , this is inspiring
I just got the modification finished with my 130 SLT and it’s totally worth it and not as scary as it sounds. Ps my UA-cam profile picture was taken with my IPhone 11 Pro mounted to the included 25mm eyepiece on the 130 SLT, single 30 second exposure, and only post processed in the included IPhone photo software. So I’m super excited to image the moon tonight in prime focus with my Altair Astro Hypercam 183c Pro. Clear skies brother 🌌🔭
Alternative to moving the primary mirror closer is to use a shorter 'astronomy' camera-T2 adaptor. These are available. Normal adapter length puts a legacy lens at sensor focal plane distance. Telescope adapters can be only a couple of millimetres thick, moving the camera close enough to achieve prime focus; especially with mirrorless cameras where the standard adaptor will be the depth of the missing mirror-box
This is certainly true though it may be harder to get these inexpensively with color. I've heard the less expensive models do amazingly for planetary, especially with the high frame rates, though the models that I've seen people using for DSOs have all been really expensive. There's definitely the plus of also not needing a camera mod due to them (atleast to my knowledge?) Already being built for H-Alpha.
Also some sensor size and resolution factors but thats really to up the end user's goals
Dude you have took some bad ass pictures.. I have this same telescope and want to start taking pics. I know you got your camera for cheap so I'm wondering what cameras do you recommend I buy that will work with this scope. Obviously I'm asking cuz I'm on a budget, so yes, the cheapest camera I can buy that will still look as amazing as the pictures you have been taking. Please and thank you
If you're going for DSOs, then go with a DSLR. If you go with Canon then get something as old or newer than the Canon EOS Rebel Xsi (i.e. Canon 450d). I got mine used body only from ebay. The reason I don't advise going further back/older than that is because you really want live-view for helping focus. Do bear in mind that you will need the telescope mirror mod to get Prime Focus with this. You could alternatively use a Barlow without the mod but that would be a nightmare for someone new to astrophotography. Do make sure you check out all of the info I, and others, have on Astrophotography before you start though! If you have personal questions that you don't see answered anywhere, feel free to email me and I'll try and help as I can:
(khmccaslin@utexas.edu)
If you want planets and aren't interested in DSOs, then a machine learning camera (webcam style) work best because they can use some extra nice software. I have an old ZWO ASI 120MC that performed great in my last video with my 6se, but the SVBony cameras may offer a nicer price point. Don't have experience with those though so do your research if you go that route.
The fact that you can do this with the 130slt without the Equatorial mount is insane.
Imagine what I can do with the Evoloution 6 inch!
Did you already try it? I'm gonna buy the evolution 6
@@TitanAnyMe Not yet, but I did 3 months of research on it. The mount is AMAZING. Also, go for the 8-inch if you can. It's probably better for you.
@@TheSpacePlaceYT Alright alright, yeah i've been doing my research aswell. The 8-inch is a bit to heavy and expensive for me tho
Thanks for the video. I just ordered a 130SLT. Looking forward to getting it. I've been looking at the sky with a pair of binoculars for years, so this is a step up. :)
Congrats and best of luck! Ping me on here if you run into anything that you think I may be able to help with!
Really impressive work. Thanks.
Omg, I am still wondering how you can achieve that. Amazing.
Beautiful work and very inspiring what you come up with with this basic setup. You just kind of forgot to mention how many hours you spent on post-processing ... 😉. Keep it up! Ever focused on the dumbbell-nebula? I think this is also a very gratifying object for beginners like me with no astro-modified dslr.
Nah. Haven't gone after that one yet. Will have to at some point though.
What is the application to rotate the picture please ?
Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) handles this. As long as it has enough alignment stars, it can stack images regardless of field rotation. I believe the minimum number is 12, but you don't want to be that low haha.
Thank you
Hey, bought the same telescope and had an idea. I have an old Omegon LX3 minitrack. When you said moving the camera a bit, could i theoretically attach the tiny LX3 to the camera, as it rotates the camera without anything else and it weights barely anything? Thought that could actually work as it's mechanical and doesn't need any power, its quite accurate etc.
That could theoretically work? Though I do think we're already near the edge of what the mount can support weight-wise.
Nice images! You should take flat frames, itll be a huge improvement
Thanks! and yeah, should probably give it a shot.
I just got my 130 SLT modified with the correct mirror position to be able to achieve focus with both my 25mm eyepiece and my Altair Astro Hypercam 183C Pro. So I’m super excited 😝. Is their anyway I could sent you my raw data and my post processed image so you could critique my acquisition skills and my processing? Ps tonight is going to be an all nighter imaging!
Very nice! Hope you had a good night imaging!
I'd love to see what you got, though sending over more than a few files gets super heavy given the amount of data lol. I've got one of my emails and some finer details on my website: kmcaesium.com/
As for processing, I'm still trying to improve but I might have some tips.
Buy a used celestron eq wedge and tripod. The SLT mount has an eq mode and you can also guide the SLT mount with an autoguider in eq mode.
Really a good result
Hi! I recently bought a second handed celestron 130 slt, I want to start taking some pics, but I am afraid to mod the mirror. Can an entry level dedicated planetary camera be used without moving the mirror??
Thanks in advance! greetings from Colombia
Hi! I've heard of other people using planetary cameras on the 130slt without a mod, but haven't been able to verify that myself as I had already modded the scope by the time I got one. So take that as you will.
An entry level planetary cam would be great for the planets! but the smaller sensor may limit you a little bit in terms of Deep Space. I know there are ways to do live-stacking with planetary cams, but also haven't tried that myself yet.
I wouldn't be too worried about the mod though. AstroPatio has a nice little video walk-through if you haven't already seen it:
ua-cam.com/video/jDpSXPNCnS0/v-deo.html
Wish I could have more firm answers for you, but I don't want to speak outside my personal experience when trying to make recommendations.
@@kylemccaslin thank you! impressive pictures and thanks for sharing
Thanks, this is very helpful. I'm just getting started with a Celestron Evolution 6 and an unmodded Nikon d5200 under Bortle 8 skies. My first couple attempts at M42 were actually very encouraging, so I'm turning next to Flame/Horsehead and Pleiades. Can you describe how many exposures, length of exposures, and ISO you used to get your photos of those targets?
I try and get atleast 1 hour aggregate light frame time.
I always just stick to my 20s exposures. You really just want as long as you can get regularly without star trails. This could be different for your mount. I could for example go to 30s each but would have to throw away quite a few frames since the tracking isn't the most consistent. Hence I stick with my regular 20s.
My ISO range is kind of limited since my camera is old, but I historically shoot at ISO 1600 which is the highest setting for my DSLR.
The Rosette Nebula may also be a good choice. It's also a winter DSO in that area and it is bright as well.
Congratulations, great video I have a telescope like yours, I made the modification in the mirror but I have problems in tracking and aligning could you give me some tips? I want to learn how to get these beautiful colors.
Boatload of alignment and usage tips on my website: kmcaesium.com/astrophotography-with-the-celestron-130-slt/
also see my full process video:ua-cam.com/video/-s3Vc7k5E1o/v-deo.html
@@kylemccaslin Very good thanks for the tips you have Instagram or Facebook?
is it possible to use the CL130 without a camera?
if not, what telescopes with similar specs can be used without a camera?
Yes it is possible to use the 130SLT without a camera.
*For the record, you can still do visual astronomy even with the mirror position mod that I use*
And if you are looking for similar scopes, the Orion Starseeker 130 is VERY similar. There are some other scopes that are a little more expensive but that is where things get a tad more specialized.
@@kylemccaslin thank you, the info is of much help :)
I've got a similar setup but I thought its not possible with a reflector telescope and a alt az mount. All I see is everyone using a apo refractor and equatorial mount with tracker to get these sort of images. When I attempted DSO with the slt alt az mount, felt as if the camera was making it too heavy for the mount to handle. What suggestion would you give for tracking with the slt mount?
Apochromatic refractors or Schmitt Cassigrains with an EQ mount and autoguider is definitely the proper way to do it but certainly isn't the only way. It's just the primary way that you see because it produces the best results (Unfortunately at a steep price).
In my experience, the mount was able to handle it just fine though a few things may help. Shifting the dove tail back slightly in its slot would move the new mass of the camera closer to the center of the mount to better balance the load. Additionally, when you are mounting the camera itself, you want to be as minimal as possible and as close to the tube as possible. Minimizing mass obviously for the weight and minimizing distance from the tube for minimizing potential vibrations. Much of this is helped by the mirror position mod that I refer to for Prime Focus with a DSLR.
Aside from that, there is always proper alignment technique to help the tracking performance. See my other videos or my plugged website for my process on that.
Thanks for a great video, I have the same celestron 130 slt. I have trouble getting focus, how to move the mirror behind, do you have a link to a page that describes how to do this. Yours sincerely
Heino from Denmark
Hey! Glad you liked the video. Here's a link to another guy's video where he does the mod: ua-cam.com/video/jDpSXPNCnS0/v-deo.html
I think the processed image better if you use starnet ++ tu remove the star first
hey really nice pictures, i got the same mount but with the maksutov 127mm.
I tried some astrophotography with my smartphone and a smartphone adapter.
Worked better than i hoped.
Now i bouht a used eos1200d, lets see what this will do
I’m buying the 127mm as well soon and I’m also running an iPhone rig😂. Have you used those cap cameras and if so would you recommend getting it ?
@@MrRockfish01 what is cap camera?
I used a android phone which worked quite ok for brighter objects like M13 oder M27.
But i recommend getting a used Eos 1000D-1200D for 60-100€.
They work really well for Astrophotgraphy.
Koeber123 -I might be calling it the by the wrong name. It’s a small camera that fits over the eye piece and you hook it up to a pc or laptop with an usb cable
@@MrRockfish01 oh ok well that sounds interesting. But since i have no experience i cant say anything about them.
Wondering if what your camera captures is always what your see through the Lenz! I mean is the long exposure needed to have these bright images or you can see them with your eye trough this specific telescope?
You can not see the DSOs well through this telescope. I would say that the appearance of the DSOs through an eyepiece with this scope is similar to what I showed for a 20 - 30s exposure taken from a dark-ish site. The majority of targets simply appear as a dim haze. In order to actually see them with the eye with clarity, you need a huge telescope.
@kylemccaslin thank you for the reply. I ordered a 5MP Celestron eyepiece camera for my 130SLT telescope. I returned it since the SW seemed and worked like it was from the aera when Win95 was the hot topic! Also I couldn't use it alone my eyepieces. It had to be used as as eyepiece itself or with a Barlow!
So I love your videos and went out and got the same scope. Trying to connect my nikon d3500 to the scope, but just got pics of the mirror. Do I have to mod the mirror? I would really like to still use the telescope for just observation too.
For prime focus, i.e. focusing at the native focal length of the telescope, you need the mod. You can achieve focus if you use a barlow instead but the higher magnification makes the setup more sensitive for long exposures. Barlows work great for planetary though.
With the mod you can still focus with the included eyepieces and a 2x barlow (I haven't tried anything else so I can't guarantee all eyepieces would still work). However, one of the included eyepieces got focus at maybe 90% seated and at max outter position of the focuser so you really are pushing the focuser limits afterwards for optical viewing.
Well done, mate! I am currently searching a good cost-effective Scope for both observation, lunar/planetary imaging and some DSO... Any foreign currency here in Brazil, like Euros or USD is a rip off!
Hey Kyle nice job.
2 questions:
1: was the SLT already modded here? (Mod of Chris by adding standoffs)
2: have you tried the eyepieces ?
Are there difficulties to focus with those ?
Thanks.
1. All of these images here are post mod
2. Yes and they still work though you are really pushing the limits of the focuser movement. The DSLR focus point is with it almost all the way in and the eye piece (only tried the included mm sizes*) focus points are at the all the way out position. One of the spots though requires the eyepiece to be like 90% seated but not fully in the adapter.
Thanks again :)
Great video, but what mod did you get for your camera.
Thanks. For the mod, I removed one of the two IR filters, the one that blocks near IR because it also blocks the Hydrogen Alpha wavelength. It was a pretty invasive process since the filter is secured RIGHT infront of the camera sensor: ua-cam.com/video/-IIN0-q2WLY/v-deo.html
Which eyepiece are you using? bacause I can't see objects like Mars, jupiter, saturn and all that
I think he was using a T-RING mount that attaches his camera to. I know that when Mars was at its closest, last October, I could see it with my 9mm that came with the telescope, pretty well. Also saw several moons of Jupiter that night. Wish I could have figured how to attach a camera at the time. Would have been quite the shots.
I am indeed using a T-ring to attach the camera directly (as just some guy Yelling mentions), meaning the camera is using the telescope itself as a lens, no eyepiece involved.
You should be able to get decent views though optically with eyepieces. Magnification is important for planets so use a barlow if you can. The views should looks somewhat similar to those in my planetary video: ua-cam.com/video/T9-94B2-K8c/v-deo.html
Thank you for this video! Very nice to see that you can take nice photographs without spending thousands. I want to buy a new telescope and mount. I have the ETX-80 but I am very disappointed. The chromatic aberration is terrible and the mount is super noisy. It sounds like R2D2 and because I am using in on my balcony I am disturbing the neighbours. I am thinking of buying a Celestron nexstar SLT 5 (Schmidt-Cassegrain) with a focal reducer. I have a question about the Celestron SLT mount, is it noisy when it is tracking?
The mount is basically silent when tracking and pretty quiet when slewing. I've worked with a ETX-80 and know exactly what your talking about. R2D2 sound is pretty spot on.
The Schmidt-Cass mount is a little higher quality so that may preform even better but I should warn you that using an altaz's alignment system on a balcony may not be optimal. At least for the 130 SLT, and I assume the other Celestron systems, it wants you to use stars as far apart as possible for the alignment. The farther apart the stars, the better the accuracy of the alignment.
At my normal site which has no major obstructions, I use 20s exposures. This is a safe exposure duration where I don't get any trailing on a good alignment. I could go up to 30s but unless the alignment is flawless I will get some trailing in some images, have to throw them out, and thus reduce my effective shooting time. So I stick with the aforementioned 20s.
On my balcony, the range is 15-20 instead of 20-30. My balcony has about 120 degrees of the sky and 240 degrees blocked by the building. Its not a deal breaker but do be aware that I took those images from a dark obstruction free site.
The higher quality mount of the Schmidt-Cass scopes probably track better but that may be offset by the higher focal length. A focal reducer sounds like a good idea imo.
On the other hand, EQ Polar scopes may be a pain to align if you can't see Polaris from your balcony. Plus the computerized ones are much more expensive.
Glad my video helped! Feel free to hit me up with any more questions and I'll try to answer them the best I can.
@@kylemccaslin thank you for all the info! It seems that the celestron mount is a good for my needs. Thanks again!
Can I also get decent exposures with Celestron 5SLT? Thanks!
Kind of. Since the focal length is 1250mm on the 5slt but the mount is tue same, you will need to decrease your exposure time to avoid star trails. This can make both storage and noise reduction a bit harder. Also do be wary of light pollution, I normally drive out a little ways to get to darker skies, not sure what the bortle level for you is.
What's up friend, I'm thinking about buying this telescope, I have a Sony a7rII, could it be adapted to take photographs of nebulae and galaxies?
I don't have any personal experience with mirror-less cameras so I am unsure whether or not you'd need the focus mod... First though, let me ask. Have you tried wide field? Like Milky-way Photography? That's the easiest way to dip your feet in.
@@kylemccaslin Yes, I have done enough Milky Way photography, I want to make the jump to deep space photography, I just wanted to know about the focusing of the telescope, I have a Canon T3i but I am not sure how to set up a telescope in which I have to make modifications to what approach
@@elrojodelasluces9594 With the T3i, you'd want to do the Prime Focus Mod. With the Sony a7rll, you might not need to mod anything but I'm not sure...
@@kylemccaslin Ok friend, I'm going to ask for it and I'll start taking photos with both cameras and if not, I'll settle for taking videos of the moon with my cell phone.
Question...
So the images you’re showing..
Is the quality increased, equal, or decreased, compared to if i were to just look through the telescope lens in person?
& if there’s a difference between what you see on your computer and what you see through the telescope what is it?
The short answer is that your eye is better for bright things like planets, the core of Andromeda, and the core of Orion Nebula. But the cameras allow you to see things you can't with your eye.
The long answer is that there is a difference here between what you can see and how well you can see it (detail/resolution).
WHAT can be seen by the eye through the lens on this scope is roughly equivalent to a 20s exposure through this scope. However, the eye is going to be better than almost all cameras in terms of detail/resolution of what is actually being seen.
What makes the computer and camera more capable and able to produce the greater images in this case is Time. Your brain processes what is received by the eye instantly where as with cameras we can add together these shorter exposure images into a single longer exposure one. Increasing the time allows us to capture and stack more photons from dim sources in order to see objects that are otherwise too dim to be instantaneously.
@@kylemccaslin alright cool man, thanks for clearing that up for me🤝
I would love to see a video of how you compensate for field rotation with camera rotation on the telescope. Do you take a 30 second exposure and then usually have to adjust for field rotation in between shots, or can you get away with like 10 or so pictures before dealing with field rotation? Im sorry if its a really nooby question lol :). Thanks in advance
So since the earth's rotation is the cause of the field rotation, the rotation is a constant and does not change based on what altaz mount you use, The earth rotates at a rate of approximately 0.25 Degrees per minute so we need to rotate the camera in it's adapter/socket in the same direction at the same average rate.
Now does this mean you need to do it after every picture?
No, that would be overkill and would likely result in you messing up the tracking accidentally if your touching the scope at some point.
My rule of thumb is for a large object, do some minor rotation (~3.75 Deg) every 15 minutes or so.
If you're imaging a small object that doesn't fill up the full frame, then you may not need to worry about it at all.
When you drop your images into the stacking software, it will align all of the images to lay over eachother properly. The field rotation correction is simply to maintain the correct framing.
Hopefully that helps?
@@kylemccaslin Thanks for the awesome answer that helped clear up so much for me :). Keep making awesome videos man I have been learning a lot from them. Its awesome when you are able to find someone with the same setup as you online :), I ordered everything to mod my 130slt to prime focus as well so no more pesky barlows lol or non full frame pictures. I cant wait to apply this to my next clear night. Thanks again and Clear skies my friend!
@@kylemccaslin How do you know how much to rotate the camera realistically? Do you have a protractor?
@@fabiogervasi982 you just kind of gain a feel for how much it is. You can use the stars in the frame as a reference to make sure your going about the correct amount.
So no I never used a protractor.
Hi! I've been interested in getting one of these telescopes and I was wondering if the camera has to be a DSLR to get images like this. Is it possible to use a phone mount and use an app like deep sky camera to manually get the iso, focus, exposure, ect you need for photos. Pls help!
Its not a long term solution. Some phone cameras are going to perform alright for starters to test. A phone on a mount with an app and specific settings should be able to get you the biggest brightest stuff like Andromeda and the Orion Nebula albeit very zoomed out. The core is pretty nice on a good phone as well but that may be rough from light polluted areas.
Doing much else will require a telescope that tracks and a DSLR. The telescope is for the optical quality (the more light catching ability the better), the tracking mounts enable long exposures (which enables more light catching ability via time, and noise reduction effects), and the DSLR provides a large sensor with LOW noise. Other things can get you some of the way but aren't long term solutions. Can elaborate if necessary
@@kylemccaslin You don't need to elaborate more I understand, Thanks for the help, wishing you clear sky's!👍
hello...i have the same telescope...how can you take photos with 20 seconds exposure time without periodic error?
There is some periodic error, its just insignificant enough that its not noticeable in most of my 20s exposures. How well it tracks is really dependent on how well you do your alignment: spot on bubble level, very far apart (as far apart as possible) alignment stars, excellent centering of stars during alignment, minimizing introduced backlash. While the periodic error in each frame is low, it does accumulate such that I do need to adjust the telescope back on target every once and a while. Maybe each hour or so. There technically is both rotational error and translational error but in my experience at least, 20s is a good duration at which a strong majority of your images don't have any noticeable error.
Hi, was looking at getting the same telescope (total new beginner), what budget camera would you suggest? I was looking at an astro camera SVBONY SV105 or SV205 or similar. Do I need a SLR if I want to take nebulas pics? Thanks
SV205 are only good for planetary photography. They don't have longer exposure time apparently
I personally don't actually have any experience with the webcam-style dedicated astrocameras. I hear they are generally IR-ready but can't attest to their effectiveness at the lower price point.
What I did was just find a used Canon EOS 450d (Rebel Xsi) on ebay and snagged it (body + battery only) for about $64. That has worked out for me pretty well. I did the astromod on my own which may be a bit deep for some people though. The mod isn't necessary for nebula but does help alot for H-Alpha.
That's about as much feedback I can give. I'd definitely recommend asking a bunch of the Astro-UA-camrs or maybe the forums for some more detail, people in the community are generally pretty helpful.
Are the images high-res enough to crop the extra triangles from field rotation off, and still look good? All in all, these images look very good for the setup. I ordered this telescope last night and was pleasantly surprised on how your images turned out without the EQ mount, I was nervous about not having that. Also, besides DeepSkyStacker, what other astrophotography-specific software did you use? (Besides Photoshop and what not) Lastly, what were your camera settings around for most of these shots? Either way, great job!
The images are pretty high res. I'd say the bigger issue is the noise. That said since its a ~5' aperture and relatively widefield, its not stellar at resolving tiny things. The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) or Thor's Helmet (NGC 2359) are about as small as I would go.
I actually haven't tried out any astrophotography specific software other than DSS. I hear BackyardEOS is excellent but don't have any experience with it personally. I do use Stellarium and Telescopius for planning. Telescopius has a very handy "Telescope Simulator" that helps you get the framing of the images the way that you want. Locating stars around dim objects and what not.
As far as camera settings go, I generally use the 20s exposures. That is the highest that I can get reliably without star trails for the mount. ISO is 1600. RAW format of course.
@@kylemccaslin Thanks for the info! I can't wait until mine gets in! I'm doing the same prime focus mod.
@@kylemccaslin Also, does the IR cut filter need to be removed? I have an A6000, what is the difference between having it removed and not?
@@mxGlass I would give it a shot with the filter still in. I don't know the specifics about the A6000's IR cut filter but it will be usable regardless of whether you mod it or not. Atleast for my Canon 450D, the purpose of removing the filter was to allow more of the Hydrogen Alpha (Ha+) to pass. A lot of the nebula have a good amount of hydrogen alpha so it helps with the contrast for them. For galaxies and bright/high magnitude nebula it doesn't matter too much. Since the summer stuff is coming up, I would suggest shooting the Lagoon Nebula and its neighbors like the Eagle Nebula. That should give a good impression of how well it can image bright to moderately bright things. Then if you want to mod it later you can.
@@kylemccaslin Thank you for this great info, keep posting!
My father bought this telescope recently and we are very new to astrophotography. How did you managed to keep objects on the field of view?
So this telescope actually does have tracking but it is open loop and dependent on your initial alignment. Basically, it knows where it is and where to move based on your inputted info at the start and during alignment, but if you bump it, then it will lose track of where it is. I elaborate a bit on this in the full process video and on my website (Kmcaesium.com). If you have more questions, you can reach me on my email which is also on my website.
Do be aware though, for DSOs, I am using a Primary Mirror Position Mod to get Prime Focus with my DSLR. It isn't complicated but figure I should mention again.
@@kylemccaslin Awesome, thank you so much for answering me. I will visit your website then!
Hi, do you still recommend the 450D camera or is there something else better? With this set can you take also good photos of moon?
The 450D is still an alright camera. The reason I went with it was that its the cheapest Canon DSLR that still has Live-View. Trying to get focus without that can be really rough. Got mine for about $65 used, body only, from Ebay.
If you can, a camera with a flip out screen or higher pixel density will treat you better.
As for the moon, it's an alright scope. I haven't done too much lunar with it though. For the best lunar stuff, you actually want to do composites of a series of zoomed in lucky images.
And to protect your sensor, you will want a lunar/moon filter. That's a 1.25" that should hopefully mate to your T-Adapter assembly (kind of like a barlow) if you are using a DSLR.
@@kylemccaslin I am thinking to get and ZWO ASI instead a DSR, but I am not sure about which one get and I don’t want to spend more than $300 on it. By chance do you have any ZWO to recommend me or even another brand?
@@alvarofigueiro1606 I do! I actually got a ZWO ASI 120MC recently, though it is an older model. It works really well for planetary-type targets, the moon included. It kind of breaks down to what you're aiming to image:
If you're going for planetary, then the machine learning ones can't be beat, but if you want to shoot DSOs, I'd prefer the bigger sensor size and flexibility of a DSLR. FYI, sensor size in this case determines how wide your maximum field of view is on a given telescope.
@@alvarofigueiro1606 there may be decent cheaper machine learing cameras at a cheap price point, but unfortunately I don't have any experience with anything other than that ZWO ASI 120MC
@@kylemccaslin thank you very much for the attention! One last question. I am thinking to get a ZWO camera because it take less attention of my wife (laughing hard 🤣) but i am not sure about one thing. Will I still need to make the mood with my 130 SLT in order to use a ZWO camera? I liked the ASI585 and with a reducer I can get good photos of M31 (at least technically)
Thanks for the info and great video, I just purchased the Sky Watcher Virtuoso 90mm hopefully to use it with Lumix G9, maybe I should have watched your video :) what are your thoughts about the Sky Watcher? thinking sending it back and get the Celestron 130SLT.
Don't have experience with the virtuoso, but they seem to be very different scopes. It kind of depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it.
Like you want to go after: Planetary, Lunar, DSOs, or Terrestrial targets?
Or if you already have lenses for your Lumix G9 and are looking to do wide field.
Theres also the heft and setup differences - like how the 130slt is likely heavier but has tripod legs.
And whether or not you are getting to GoTo part of the virtuoso.
Plus your lighting conditions and whatnot.
For the kind of stuff that I shoot, it does require "long" exposures though and I don't know what results would be like at certain focal lengths. It's really hard for me to comment without experience with the virtuoso and I don't want to lead you astray.
Small question! How much iso and shutter speed did you set for ur camara???
By the way, Thx for your great video, i actually bought same telescope.
iso 1600 and 20s exposures/shutter speed.
The exposure time depends on how well you can align the scope. Use very far apart stars for this alignment for the best results. Also see my full process video for more details.
Could i also do this with my 130Eq?
What do you think? :)
You should be able to do planetary to a similar quality with your 130EQ. But for the DSO stuff, I don't really think its realistic. The DSO stuff requires long exposures which requires tracking, to a degree that is basically impossible to do by hand.
If you can motorize the mount then maybe? I don't have any experience with those auxiliary motors though.
@@kylemccaslin Alright. No I came to the same conclusion after reviewing people's experiences with the 130EQ.
Do you recommend the 130SLT as a beginner telescope for DSO?
For me the 130SLT is a bit on the pricier side. Maybe you know a decent telescope for the DSO stuff for 200 - 400 dollar? (euro in my case)
You make really nice video's btw, explaining how to use telescopes and work with astrophotograpy!
Im trying to get into taking pictures through a telescope, I'd love to take some pictures like you have. Can you explain how you set up the camera for this. Do you just take a picture with a 20 second exposure over and over again? Then you put them in a software and layer them all together? Please help me out, I love your work.
Yup, it is alot of 20s exposures stacked on top of one another to build contrast in the image. Optimally, you would want to do longer exposures but that is limited by your tracking quality. A free software called Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) does the stacking for you after you and then lets you adjust the resulting image histogram to bring out the details.
I've got a little bit more detail on my new website that may help. Didn't want to do videos for all of the info since some of it would be a bit dry. Check out the Astrophotography section.
kmcaesium.com/
@@kylemccaslin Thank you very much! I'm going to check out your website
Your website is amazing. Thanks again for all the help, I can't wait to use all that I have learned from you. Keep up the great work!
@@noahsampson3597 no problem! Glad you found it helpful!
Very nice
hey dude niceeeeee job i luv it,
i want to buy one telescopy and this one is one of my options.
then thats why i write u.
i want to know exactly what did u used for took those pics.
and i wanna ask u how ist for see the planets, do u have any pics for show me¿¿
I mostly have just stuck to nebulae and galaxies so I don't really have an planetary images to show you. This scope is a bit wide field for planets. If your looking specifically for planetary or lunar there may be better options. Higher focal lengths are a bit better for planets since planets are so small.
If you did want to use this scope for planetary, you would definitely want a Barlow Lens. That should multiply the magnification. Barlows can impose distortions in the view though so look at all the reviews.
Also it may be important to note that I take almost all of my pictures from a dark spot. This doesn't really matter for planetary but if your interested in DSOs then a filter would probably be needed to get similar results.
Also if you use a Barlow with this scope, you dont need a mirror position mod.
And if it's for planetary you dont want a camera mod.
I wanna do those kind of pics that u taken. Also I would like to see the planets. I wonder. For u took those pics what did u use. I mean the telescope and something else? Some lens or whatever?
And for see the planets I will need a Barlow. And what else. Or only Barlow is enough????
I was checking for a celestron a lil more big (mm) but couldn't find. Do u know some??
how about celetron omni xtl150¿¿ what u think the problem is , that it dosnt bring goto
I've been using my phone to shoot very fast exposures with an unguided 8" dob. I get decent pictures of the planets, but want to do longer exposures to see fainter objects. Would a phone camera be sensitive enough to pick up nebula with 30 second exposures? My phone can save as raw if that helps. Im also already familiar with stacking which I assume I would need. I just dont want to have to buy a scope and camera at the same time.
You phone may work but would likely not be that great. I'm sure you already know how rough it can be getting the phone in a proper position to take good pictures on your dob. The more difficult thing here is that the big "bright" DSOs that you'd shoot are actually really big and you take up a lot of the frame. I know for my phone camera atleast that the noise drastically increases as you move away from the center of each image. With DSOs, since they are so faint, noise is the main issue. Yes stacking will 100% be required here and Raw is a good idea though I've had varying results with Raw on my phone. Basically, there's a lot of stuff working against you here but I'd say it's still probably do-able. Do get other opinions though, my experience with the phone on the telescope for DSOs is rather limited.
As far as cheap DSLRs goes, I actually got mine used off of ebay so they may be less expensive than you might think?
Can you please go into depth about the mods that were made to both scope and camera? I’m looking at purchasing the same scope.
The mod (ua-cam.com/video/jDpSXPNCnS0/v-deo.html&feature=emb_logo) moves up the primary mirror and pushes the focal point out a bit so that you can achieve focus with a DSLR. This isn't necessary if you use a webcam style dedicated camera like those used for planetary, it is meant for DSLRs. The mod still allows you to use the included eyepieces with a 2x barlow (I've tested these, more may be ok but I am not sure). Focus for one of the eyepieces does require it to not be 100% seated in the adapter after the mod, which isn't really an issue but proves that the mod pushes the bounds of the focuser.
The DSLR astromod (dslrmodifications.com/rebelmod450d1.html) is rather intensive and is non-reversible. It was an easy choice for me since I bought a used 450d for cheap but it is obviously up to you. The mod will vary based on the camera but the guy covers a lot of canon models.
But first, what are you looking for in a telescope? DSO Astrophotography? Planetary Astrophotography? Optical Viewing? Are you in heavy light pollution (www.lightpollutionmap.info/)? Is the budget tight?
Hi Kyle, my intervalometer is only taking one photo despite the settings I have it on. Is there any camera settings I may have incorrect that would be causing this?
I'm not really sure how I can help here. The shutter release I use is just a simple button with a toggle switch. My camera is in single shoot manual mode.
How are you getting your mount to track? I have the Orion starseeker 130mm which is basically the same as yours. It does the go to feature but I can’t get it to track the object.
It should just be tracking after you go to the target. The quality of the tracking is going to depend on your alignment but if your able to get on target using the goto function, then your alignment should be ok.
One thing though is that after you goto a target, it may take a minute for the tracking to effectively start. Depending on how the scope slewed to the target, it may need to overcome some gear slosh. On my scope, if the target is moving in the opposite direction from where the motors just slewed, it takes maybe 40 seconds.
If it's not that then I'm not really sure whats up.
@@kylemccaslin thanks man, I’ll have to give it a shot and see what happens. Thanks for always being so responsive. I’m sure I’ll have more questions in the near future.
hi kyle loved the video really inspired me to go out and take images with my setup too...the thing i was asking was were all these images taken from the bortle 4 level area u were talking about because in one shot u mentioned city light suppression or some other word just curious
Just about all of these are from the bortle 4 place. One of the flame nebula images is from the city with a City Light Suppression Filter. There are some processing techniques to get the images in the city with the CLS filter similar to the darker sky images. I'm not adept at that yet but there are plenty of other astrophotography youtubers that shoot from city lights that have great tutorials for the processing
many people told me that , whit celestro 130. cant take pictures more longer than 10 minutes, then they said if i want to take pictures more longer than 10 minutes that i will need a ecuatorial telescopy , is that truth??
im not sure which one to buy if celestron130. or
skywatcher reflector150/750 eq3 goto.
what u think is better???
i would like , also see some planets,
im not sure if with this telescopy that im telling u i can see something, i would like to see detyles.
what u think???? explaing me please
Hi I've just purchased a celestron 127slt is it possible to see and take photos of m21 or a nebula with this model??
I wouldn't recommend it for DSOs. The focal length is really high on that OTA and I don't think the mount can support long exposures that zoomed in. The zoom works well for planetary, but when it comes to DSOs it's kind of a mixed bag. Higher zoom (under your telescope's optical limit) will get you higher resolution, but it dilutes the light per pixel and requires better tracking due to the higher sensitivity. I don't think you'd have a good time trying to get nebulae with that model.
@@kylemccaslin thank you for letting me know what telescope would you recommend for nebula/galaxy's and planets
@@stevenfuller9249 There are quite a few options on getting nebulae and galaxies, especially if you are willing to go somewhat wide field. You absolutely need decent enough tracking (for your focal length) to allow for long exposures. So if you have a wide-field setup, then you can get away with lower quality tracking. That said, there are a few routes:
You can use a startracker with a DSLR or smaller OTA and do some really nice wide-field stuff. Many DSOs are quite big and this is a good way to start using Equatorial mounts - the best type of mount for Long Exposure Astrophotography. That said, since these typically can't take heavy loads, it may be a little more difficult to get some good planetary images, though certainly possible.
Secondly, you could opt for a Alt-Az Mount & OTA. These are really common and a little more intuitive to understand, but can be a bit of a patchwork solution. In this range, I'd either go with something with a good aperture that is pretty zoomed out (650mm Focal Length) like the 130slt, or something BIG and solid like a 8SE. DO BEWARE however that if you go the 130slt route like I did, it did require a mod for me to get focus with my DSLR. AltAz mounts also aren't meant for long exposure stuff in that they don't compensate for field rotation like Equatorial mounts do. If you're willing to give them the time though, the scopes I mentioned can do reasonably well for both DSOs and Planets, with the 8se having a great OTA that can be put on a Equatorial mount if you want to upgrade from there.
Lastly, there's the deep pockets route - A Go-to Equatorial mount with a large Schmitt-Cassigrain OTA (Newts and Refractors are both great too but Schmitt-Casses are a great all around package). This is what the best amateur astronomers use, but these come at a steep price.
And technically, if you're really more interested in optical astronomy, a Dobsonian will get you the best Aperture per dollar. Dobs are fantastic for that since Aperture is king in astronomy, but they are of course manual setups, so no automated tracking.
I hope that helps? If you're willing to put in the time, there are alot of different setups that you can make work, but in general you should keep your eye out for good tracking and big aperture, and I'd stay away from telescopes with long focal lengths if they don't have excellent tracking (if you're interested in DSOs).
As always, there are plenty of really helpful people in the astronomy community and plenty of people with helpful videos that may help you better understand the specifics of each route, especially since none of us have done it all.
Is that longs peak aat 1:54 ? Do u live in Colorado ?
That is longs. I'm not normally up there though.
Hello i have a question im not sure if you can help me or not any help would be appreciated. I recently did the prime focus with this telescope and have the t ring plus 2x barlow for focusing but im having a issue where when i try and focus it. It will almost focus but not quiet my camera is a canon rebel t5. Im just stumped on what to do
When you say you did the Prime Focus do you mean you moved the primary mirror?
The "Almost focus but not quite sounds like the focal point for the assembly isn't in the range. If it is just outside, you can always use the set screws to hold the barlow further out where it isn't fully seated.
I'm not sure what you mean by hard to line up the stars though.
Is this all for planetary? Barlows for DSO Astrophotography isn't a great idea but for planetary it is fine.
Could you elaborate a little bit?
Also, is the scope collimated? that could be an issue too.
@@kylemccaslin looks like it it works now not sure what i did but everything is working fine :) thanks !
@@kylemccaslin i was using the barlow lens for planetary but i was wondering also what i need for dso? I have been looking around but cant find a good answer i did collimate it so im pretty sure thats what fixed it
@@12andrewrules so the larger DSOs are actually really big so the native focal length is actually pretty good. Generally for DSOs, since they are so dim, you dont want to be using a barlow. Barlows reduce image depth but increase magnification/detail. They are good for planetary since the planets are so small and bright but for DSOs where your already starved for light, not so much.
For DSOs a good spot to start would be you big bright ones. Lagoon, Trifid, and Andromeda are some good ones up now.
Curious, what does it look like when just staring through the eyepiece? Does it look anything like that or is it just a sheet of stars against a black backdrop?
The Orion nebula looks a bit like that 20s sub I showed before the stacked image. Alot of DSOs aren't visible in real time though unless you've got a huge aperture in a dark spot.
Can you use it for normal viewing after mod? (without camera) Thank you!
You can still with the default/included eyepieces (those are all i tested, might not work for others*). You are however pushing the outer limits of the focusser (post-mod) when doing so. Meaning that for one of the eyepieces, I could only achieve focus visually when the eyepiece was not completely inserted into the adapter (maybe 85% inserted instead of 100%). So it still functions fine, though there are some quirks.
@@kylemccaslin Thank you! Looking for parts to mod mine over the next couple of days. Any parts list? The linked video shows links to a company pretty far away and has high shipping cost.
So let's see if I got it right. Because of the fact that this telescope is not equipped with an equatorial mount you had to slightly rotate each frame in order to obtain a clear object? I'm asking because I just got the same exact telescope you have and everyone in astronomy groups is like "YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE TO DO DEEP OBJECTS PHOTOGRAPHY" lol I'd be so grateful if you'd answer
So based on the quality of the tracking, I am able to get 20s exposures with no star trails at native focal length (no trails due to rotation and no trails due to tracking issues). The rotation part of this comes in when you are imaging bigger object that fill the frame. If they fill the frame, and the frame us naturally rotating, it will rotational drift over time. That rotational drift is what usually needs to be corrected for on Altaz mounts.
I take a ton of these 20s frames and stack them together with stacking software like DSS and if there is no trails in the individual images, then DSS will align and composite the images together into a single clear one.
This isn't the easiest way to do DSOs but you definitely still can. This is largely thanks to the awesome stacking software that has come out over the last 10 or so years.
@@kylemccaslin thanks a lot, as I said people often avoid to mention there are ways to adapt with the equipment you have. I guess spending thousands of euros in accessories shuts your mouth about less conventional procedures lol but it's undeniable that results like yours are admirable. Thanks again
Can I get similar images with a celestron astromaster 130 eq .....it has almost the same magnification...but has a manual german equatorial mount
For DSOs not really. DSOs realistically require "long" exposures and you won't be able to turn the knob at a slow and constant rate to track it with your manual mount. If you really wanted to you could try it with maybe 1 second exposures on the orion nebula or andromeda core but its not going to be a very good experience.
This doesn't mean that you can't do Planetary though if your interested in that.
What would be your 2nd choice for a Telescope that's perhaps 1 level higher?
Probably one of Celestron's Nexstar SEs. They are generally of higher quality and you wouldn't have to mod or anything. In that similar price point though you may be able to snag a goto equatorial mount. The EQ mounts are designed for astrophotography so that may be a better route if that's your sole aim.
@@kylemccaslin Awesome! I'll look into all that !! Thanks for the response ...!
Anyone know if re-acquiring the object once a minute of so might avoid the problem of field rotation?
Field rotation is inherent to alt-az mounts so no amount of realignment of the telescope or translation of the FOV is going to address it. The only way to compensate on an alt-az mount is camera rotation, which could be automated but at that could get tough. Might as well go Equatorial at that point (Equatorial inherently compensating for field rotation). I'm not sure if that answers your question?
@@kylemccaslin Yes. Thank you.
Do you need an extension tube along with the mirror mod to get focused images?
I didn't need any tubing to achieve focus, just those different screws/screw extenders for the mirror holder in the back.
@@kylemccaslin Cool, I'm 3D printing an extension tube just in case
remarkable
Thanks! Stacking is the real magic maker here. It has definitely helped make DSOs much more accessible.
Great pictures.
Thanks!
Hello. I wanna ask u what u think about this cam for long pics dark sky . Cannon eos 1100D
Cuz I need to buy a cam but I will buy a used one. For start. This cam I found it to 140 euros
That camera should do fine.
sorry, but for these photos you didn't need a long exposure? and consequently an equatorial mount?
Equatorial mounts allow for very long exposures because they account field rotation. Field rotation is a really slow movement though, roughly 360 Degrees per 24hrs, so you can use short enough exposures to where you don't notice any rotation in a single frame. So by keeping my exposures shorter but drastically increasing the number of exposures, I can get these images. 180x20s exposures can get me a comparable result to 4x15m exposures, though longer exposures are better for noise reduction. Basically, it isn't optimal to use a AltAz mount for this but it is doable.
@@kylemccaslin sorry, but what do you mean by 180 / 20s?
20s are the seconds, while 180? maybe ISO?
@@cikkine I was referring to equivalent aggregate time with shorter exposures: you could stack 180 separate 20second exposures to get something comparable to a stack of 4 separate 15 minute exposures. Longer individual exposures is optimal but stacking the shorter ones into a single image allows setups like mine to work.
Is the neximage 5 camera good for DSO
I personally don't have any experience with using webcam style cameras for DSOs. I've only used DSLRs for that.
Can you use the 90slt for astrophotography
You can probably use it for planetary and lunar.
You should be able to get the bands of Jupiter & probably the spot, and the rings of saturn & maybe the Cassini division.
For DSOs however, I don't think it's very possible. The focal length of the scope is really long relative to the aperture as well as the aperture itself being small.. That makes DSOs exceedingly difficult. You could try to take a picture of the Orion Nebula or maybe the core of Andromeda, but not much else.
I am a beginner so I have a very important question and that is how i do long exposures with the 130 slt. I would be nice if anyone had a answer he could tell me
You need to attach a camera and take some ~20second exposures with the scope tracking the target. For me, I used a DSLR attached to the focuser. I needed to modify the telescope slightly to get focus with this DSLR though. If your alignment is good, then you should be able get 20s exposures on the 130slt without star trails. 20 seconds is not long at all when you talk about "long exposures" in astrophotography, but if we stack them into something much longer.
I have a guide video explaining my process:
ua-cam.com/video/-s3Vc7k5E1o/v-deo.html
The video doesn't include how to do the mod, but "AstroPatio" has a video walking through that modding process.
i have a nikon d610 which has full frame sensor. does this mean i can reduce exposure times?
No, but you will have a larger field of view with the same resolution as you would otherwise have with a crop sensor camera.
@@kylemccaslin thats nice to hear!! should i use a t2 to 2 inch adaptor? because i feel like the sensor is so big that the 1.25 adaptor that goes to prime is so small for the sensor
@@doomhunta1094 I dont explicitly know, but I bet your correct. 1.25in might be enough but 2in is definitely safe.
Did you take these photos in city lights?
Not normally, I usually drive an hour or so out to get to a bit darker skies
Nice video. Did you try any imaging using your eyepiece on a T Ring? Im kinda sketched out moving the primary mirror. Do you have discord, if so would you mind adding me? I'd like to ask you a few questions. VelocityFTW#3820
I did use a lens on it after I moved the primary in order to test if I could still use it for direct optical. I remember it working but don't recall which lens I used. I'll give it a shot again when I can. Yes I have a discord. Friend Request sent.
Is this mirror Spherical or Parabolic?
I believe it is parabolic, but there is a bit of confusion out there on if it is or not. Celestron unfortunately isn't clear on this and doesn't mention it on their page. Some retailers claim, like B&H, say parabolic though.
Will any DSLR camera work or does buying a more expensive camera help with image quality? Thank you!
So long as the camera is new enough that you have live view, you should be OK. Modern DSLRs (I'm typically talking Canon & Nikon) are all pretty low on noise.
Going for a more expensive camera could theoretically get you more resolution, but smaller pixels may actually have a trade off in that less light is collected by each pixel. There's some funky stuff there that I'm also not even sure about.
I think there are a few things that I eye more than just cost and image resolution. The light filtering is pretty important for capturing nebulae, particularly the Hydrogen Alpha wavelength. To get that in my setup, I removed a near Red filter which ruins the camera for normal use by disrupting the white-balance. I am comfortable doing that on a cheap DSLR, but not an expensive one if you get what I mean. And there are some other things like how well it continuously shoots, etc. So I tend to like cheap but "modern".
What's the light pollution scale you're living in?
I drive out about 35 minutes to a Bortle 4ish
@@kylemccaslin i live under bortle 8 skies. will a light pollution make a big difference, and will I be able to capture some shots?
@@adammadi9109 It does make a big difference. You can still do astrophotography, but you would want some kind of city light suppression filter. It simulates having a darker sky but requires a bit of additional post processing to get the correct colors back. For that post processing I would have to refer to the other content creators as I am nowhere near as good at that as they are.
@@kylemccaslin ok thanks! I am planning on buying a gosky light pollution filter. people say it's pretty good at blocking out light pollution, but im a bit skeptical.
@@adammadi9109 sounds alright. Just make sure you do all of your research. For example, for this scope in order for it to get good tracking you generally need alignment stars that are very far apart, opposite preferably. Basically you its not great if you are shooting from a place with a lot of obstructions either. My website lists a bit of factors and considerations that I thought about but certainly get all of the opinions that you can! (Kmcaesium.com)
Will this work with a nexstar 4se
The optical train is a little different and the specs favor the 130slt a little bit, such as the aperture, but yes you should be able to DSO astrophotography with the 4se as well
I would primarily only go for the brightest targets though as that aperture difference does matter. Things like the Orion Nebula, Andromeda, Lagoon Nebula, Trifid Nebula, Pleiades, Flame Nebula, etc.
Wouldn’t it be better for a long exposure because it has a eq mode for its mount
What lens do you use to get those photos?
The telescope itself is used as the lens. In order to prime focus though it needed a primary mirror position mod. Link in the description.
Are these images through this telescope?"130SLT"
Yes, though I had to do a mod on it to allow it to use a DSLR at the native focal length. These are also stacked images so they are the aggregate of a few hours each, not representative of what you can see in real time.
@@kylemccaslin Yes, but I mean, you can see the nebula from it, right? But can you tell me how much it's priced?
-Thanks
@@Reooq In real time through the eyepiece, you can't really see any nebulae. You can se the cores of the brightest ones like Orion, but not much else.
Only with the largest telescopes in the darkest of skies can you see the nebulae with your eye.
This telescope is 400 - 650 USD new, but the used market for telescopes is also pretty good.
Hopefully that answers your questions?
@@kylemccaslin You mean the nebula can't be seen from it, do you? Well, another question, can planets in general and Saturn in particular be seen?
@@Reooq Correct, if you look in the eye piece, nebulae are too dark to be seen.
Planets can be seen.
Great video, thanks! Very helpful. Just curious- I'm planning on trying the prime focus mod... Does that affect your ability to use the telescope for regular viewing? Or would you have to reposition the mirror to go back to regular viewing instead of photography?
You can still do regular viewing with the included eyepieces (haven't tested other ones out). That said, to get focus with one of them, you have to max out the focuser and then have the eyepiece not 100% fully seated. 2x Barlows still work as well but again you may not be 100% seated.
So yes, pretty much.
@@kylemccaslin thanks for the reply! Much appreciated. Love your channel/ videos!
What f/stop did you shoot on?
I think you may be referring to the F/stop setting on some cameras when using a lens but since I use the telescope as the lens in my set up I can't change the F/stop in the same way. It could be changed using some additional equipment though. A 2x barlow would double the F/Stop ex from F/5 to F/10. A reducer would have the opposite effect. However, the faster the scape that you have the more you may need to worry about coma.
Generally speaking though the faster the F/stop the better. F/4 for example would be better than F/8.
@@kylemccaslin I meant to delete this comment, I realized that this was a dumb question. (When using a telescope) Thank you for the info anyway, as well as all the help you offered previously.
I might have more questions in the near future, I have her all set up now but every single night all week has been extremely cloudy. Feels bad. Have yet to do the prime focus mod yet, but when I can finally test I will probably need to. Thanks again! You've been so helpful.
Hey Kyle. really helpful content. Thank you for sharing
I have 130SLT and like to do some astrophotography with my Canon 60D. I have tried to follow this www.cloudynights.com/topic/812897-celestron-130-slt-modified-for-prime-focus/ 3D printed out three primary mirror holder. Still not able to get focus on my Canon 60D. am I missing something here.
thanks for you help in advance
Hard to say exactly. I used this guide: ua-cam.com/video/jDpSXPNCnS0/v-deo.html
I would say that be cautious of what you 3D print with. If the material is thin and under load, it could creep which could eventually prevent collimation. For example, I had a PLA gear for a barn-door tracker that crept to failure.
On that still being unable to get focus, how are you mounting the camera? are you using a direct adapting route like "Solution #2" in that cloudy nights post, or are you trying something else?
Thank Kyle. I have already tried solution 1
I have 3d printed mirror holders and they fit nicely but still no focus.
@@article7442 but how are you attaching your camera, are you using an adapter like that shown in Solution 2
@@kylemccaslin No I am not using solution 2
I am using T ring with 1.25 adapter in focuser
@@article7442 I think you need to mount the camera closer i.e. like done in solution 2. The mod that I used, which is different but looks to be a similar distance, uses the same closer focus position. You should just be able to screw your T-Ring in with the stuff you currently have tho.
It seems you have a super low bortle sky
I drive about 35 mins to a bortle 4
That scope costs 700€ new in my country ;_;
Yeah thats a bit... maybe there's a used market? You still do have a few good options if you want to get into astrophotography though! Star trackers might be more avaliable or atleast have a better price. You would have to get a separate lens/OTA though as the Star trackers are only the base. They are generally better for wider field stuff.
Kyle McCaslin welp like 2weeks ago i bought astromaster 130 but its not computized so hard to find objects so i was thinking of buying new computerized scope
@@FINSuomenPoika I had a dobsonian briefly and it was super hard for me to find stuff too. Plus if your looking for DSOs, almost all of them are too dim to be seen in real time unless your at like a bortle 2 with a decent aperture.
You really need some kind of tracking too if your looking to so non-wide field astrophotography of DSOs. That is what lets you go to longer exposure lengths to get that longer aggregate time easier.
If your just doing visual astronomy though then computerized is a bit overkill. All of the stuff your theoretically looking at should be bright enough for you to find with the help of your Finder Scope.
Kyle McCaslin i also would like to start astrophotography but i have to learn to edit first :)) maybe someday
What about what you physically just see through it. I'm not a photoshop genius here
Real Time, it's much closer to what you see at 3:40 (if not a bit less than that). Your mileage is still going to vary though depending on the darkness and weather you are viewing from. You can see the core of the Orion Nebula and the Core of Andromeda, but most DSOs look like hazy blobs real time. That's true for all but the biggest scopes though. That's kind of why I like the photography element - because you can resolve more by integrating time.
There's not a whole lot to the Stacking and Processing though and plenty of videos on it. Also plenty of ways to start Astrophotography, the simplest being wide field with a DSLR and lense.
Hey, i have a nexstar slt 130 to, does it auto track i want to take a pic of orion nebula do you have and recommendation of exposure time and how long for.
It does auto track, given that you have aligned it. Do beware of backlash though. If the mount reverses direction in either axis, there is slosh in the gears so it may not appear as though its tracking once you get in target. It may take several seconds for the mount to overcome it.
Good choice of starting targets. If you have the prime focus mod, are using a DSLR, and are using my guidelines for proper alignment, then 15 seconds per exposure would be good.
If you don't have the prime focus mod and are instead using a Barlow, then it'd atleas halve that - more towards 5 seconds per exposure.
Total exposure is just the longer the better. I cap out at 3 hrs tho since thats quite a bit of time.
@@kylemccaslin Ok, thank you so much for your help.
@@kylemccaslin also do you think I would have to worry about due with this telescope and my camera? If so is there any diy solutions?
@@Snailstolemysoul it's only DIY solutions lol.
So first off, the Prime Focus mod is crucial if you want to really want to use this scope more than just a one-off. The mod moves the mirror forward and let's you get focus with a DSLR ( which is impossible normally due to the backfocus (how far back the sensor is from the front of the camera)). This let's you image at Prime Focus i.e. 650 mm focal length which is the native length of the scope. There is a video that shows how to do this.
Aside from that, if you are siming for Nebula and are willing and able to dedicate and mod a camera, you can remove the Near IR filter from a DSLR to capture more wavelengths, especially the Hydrogen Alpha Wavelength. There are guides for this as well.
@@kylemccaslin I bought this thing not sure what it does but it says you can use it instead of prime focus
I have the same telescope..