Backyard Astrophotography

Why Astrophotography?

My interest on night sky did not come on all of a sudden. In fact I can remember as a kid, I would look up at the heavens and wonder what's up there. And many years later, I almost bought a telescope during my first job abroad. Then came photography as a hobby, I was into all sorts of it. But my fascination of the heavens did not go away. It just went into dormancy.
Fast forward to the present, here I am finally settled on another country.  In western Canada, camping is popular during summer, and on the summer of 2014 we booked into a campsite that had a "Star Party" on our camping dates. I have no idea what a star party was. It turned out to be a convention of amateur astronomers, astrophotographers and everybody else that has an interest of the night sky. I saw their equipment, i went into one of the indoor presentations, saw the images and that was it. I was hooked already.
Then i said to myself, i need a telescope by the next summer. I would use the telescope not to observe but to photograph objects in the night sky.

Came spring of 2015.

Finally after much research, I decided that a perfect beginner scope is an 80mm refractor. The Skywatcher ED80 Black Diamond looks very promising. The scope has a 600mm focal length and f7.5 f-ratio.  Telescopes differ from camera lenses when it comes to f-ratio. 80mm is diameter of the main optics. 600mm is the focal length. 600/80 and you get f7.5 which makes it a medium "fast" telescope.

Skywatcher ED80 kit

The scope comes with  all the accessories for visual use such as 50mm finder scope, and 28mm 2 inch eyepiece. I was surprised when i first looked at the eyepiece. The views are wide and bright. A viewfinder of a full frame camera is very dim compared to the views offered through this eyepiece. Suddenly you can see a lot of stars even in a light polluted sky.
Other imaging accessories such as a T-ring for DSLR attachment is bought separately.

APO 80mm doublet fully multi-coated optics.

This model is equipped with  premium optics such as an ED glass, just like most modern camera lenses.

I ordered a fully functional system, one that is all set to go. And the mount is more important than the telescope. The Skywatcher EQ3 Synscan is a good starter mount and very portable too., but the mount is limited to 5 kgs for imaging and 7 kgs for visual use, the ED80 + DSLR & accesories is just right for the maximum payload so i cannot use the mount on more heavier telescopes.

EQ3 Synscan Equatorial mount

Synscan Micro computer

The EQ3 is  a German equatorial mount with GOTO and tracking capabilities. GOTO is just short for "go to" which means you select a star, push a button and the telescope will go to or point itself on the target. It's actually more complicated than it sounds.

Hand controller with GPS

The hand controller lets you select over 40,000 objects currently available on the night sky. But in order for it to be accurate, you need an almost perfect polar alignment and a good star alignment.

Orion Starshoot Autoguider.

One essential accessory for a successful astrophotography is an auto-guider. In fact it is a must. More on auto-guiding later.


The EQ3 + ED80 combo is just a perfect balance between portability and the ability to image long exposures at 600mm focal length without star trailing, that is though with active guiding. I have successfully tried unguided for 3 minutes without star trailing but that was with excellent polar alignment, and that is something that comes as a hit and miss sometimes.

I shall document all the imaging process here as I am learning the curve and will be posting the images taken with this system.