Night Sky - Milky Way Photography.

My head is a geared head so I can make very small and precise movements.  The ball part just gets you roughly in the right place, the gears then do the fine tuning.  Here's the head in case you aren't familiar with it - they are very expensive though!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Te5eLFw2M
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... lhead.html

That head is both lighter and cheaper than the Arca Swiss C1 (Cube) or Arca Swiss D4 (Geared) though so it's not THAT expensive.

Tony, if I got the Skywatcher Photo Package and the Wedge Base, would that be everything I would need to get going? Do you think that rig would be able to handle the 200-500 f5.6. I assume either should be able to handle the 300 PF?  EJ's head, while I'm sure is very good, is way too pricey for me. 

Using an existing tripod and head that you can mount the camera to, yes. The wedge base would attach to the tripod and your head would attach to the tracker. After you get it, practice setting it up during the day (without the alignment step) so that you can practice pointing the camera in different ways. And then see how the movement effects things. It wasn’t easy for me to get used to that and I still practice before a session. You might need to spend sometime simply practicing the alignment too before you really take it into the field.

And I would think it should be able to handle the weight. (Assuming the weight is balanced correctly.) However I don’t think it was really designed to track accurately enough for longer focal lens. It will be better than using nothing, especially if you can get it properly aligned. Yet the whole thing is too small and vibrations will creep in that you won’t be able to remove.

As an example, I used a manual focus 600m F5.6 during the Total Eclipse. The longest exposure I took during totality was a 1/2 second exposure which I knew was on right on the edge for getting moon movement issues. That wasn’t what ended up being my biggest problem as I lengthened the exposure toward that value. Vibrations in the system were, especially those caused by the mirror slap ended up being a bigger problem. So I ended up having to set the camera to delay exposure 3 seconds after the shutter open before exposing. And obviously I also used a remote shutter release too. (All practiced prior to the event by using the moon as a substitute subject about a week before the event.)

The point of that is that adding a tracker into my setup would have only increased the issues with vibrations. I’m not sure I would have resolved the issues satisfactorily with the tracker in the system. (I guess one of the nights I’ll have to setup this experiment to see if I can or not. I know I can with much bigger, heavier and more expensive equipment since that’s the what equipment is used for those Deep Sky Images we see.)

Anthony Medici wrote:That head is both lighter and cheaper than the Arca Swiss C1 (Cube) or Arca Swiss D4 (Geared) though so it's not THAT expensive.

Yeah, it's a completely different product than the Cube - on that you really only have the gears which really limits it's ability to shoot up or down at any significant angle.  The D4 fixes that but I already have a heavy geared hybrid (ball/geared) head in the KPS T5 that I use for my medium format.  I wanted something lighter and more portable in a hybrid head for my mirrorless and 35mm cameras and the p0-hybrid just fits the bill perfectly.  I did replace the clamp from the one in the picture I posted above with an RRS clamp.  The Arca-swiss lever clamp, in a word, sucks.

By the way, you can add the gearing part of the head to almost any head by getting the Arca-Swiss L60 which attaches to whatever clamp you have with a mounting plate.  You can then use your ballhead as a hybrid ball/geared head.

Well, I guess I am slowly beginning to understand this, but some of what you guys are saying goes over my head because I have never seen or used a tracking unit. Without knowing which companies products are "better" than the other, can I assume the iOptron prodcuts are very good? What about this one for a heavier setup: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... mount.html Would it include everything I need to get a start at it? Along with Milky Way images, I would also like to be able to try my hand at other objects like Andromeda Galaxy and various nebulae.

Tim Zurowski wrote:Well, I guess I am slowly beginning to understand this, but some of what you guys are saying goes over my head because I have never seen or used a tracking unit. Without knowing which companies products are "better" than the other, can I assume the iOptron prodcuts are very good? What about this one for a heavier setup:  https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... mount.html    Would it include everything I need to get a start at it?  Along with Milky Way images,  I would also like to be able to try my hand at other objects like Andromeda Galaxy and various nebulae.

It looks to me like it has everything you need except whatever you plan to mount on the tracker and then mount the camera to.

E.J. Peiker wrote:

Tim Zurowski wrote:Well, I guess I am slowly beginning to understand this, but some of what you guys are saying goes over my head because I have never seen or used a tracking unit. Without knowing which companies products are "better" than the other, can I assume the iOptron prodcuts are very good? What about this one for a heavier setup:  https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... mount.html    Would it include everything I need to get a start at it?  Along with Milky Way images,  I would also like to be able to try my hand at other objects like Andromeda Galaxy and various nebulae.

It looks to me like it has everything you need except whatever you plan to mount on the tracker and then mount the camera to.

Sorry EJ, but I do not fully understand what you are saying there? I was planning on using my ballhead. Will that not work?

Ballhead will work. What I'm saying is that you need to mount something to the tracking platform on the tracker - the threaded stud in the pictures of the ioptron.

I don’t know if you referred to the links I posted before, but this guy knows plenty about astrophotography. In the second link I posted, 1e and 5  have a bit of info on setup and tracking. Part 5 is about a simple basic tracker with little investment that some people may want to try before investing in expensive trackers. He does get technical in a lot of his writings. This is a link to his credentials:

http://www.clarkvision.com/rnc/index.html

Joe

E.J. Peiker wrote:Ballhead will work.  What I'm saying is that you need to mount something to the tracking platform on the tracker - the threaded stud in the pictures of the ioptron.

Thanks EJ. I have never seen a tracker before, so I have no idea what a "something" is?   But if a ballhead is a something, then I have it.

SantaFeJoe wrote:I don’t know if you referred to the links I posted before, but this guy knows plenty about astrophotography. In the second link I posted, 1e and 5  have a bit of info on setup and tracking. Part 5 is about a simple basic tracker with little investment that some people may want to try before investing in expensive trackers. He does get technical in a lot of his writings. This is a link to his credentials:

http://www.clarkvision.com/rnc/index.html

Joe

That is designed for wide angle lenses and then taking numerous exposures over 15 to 30 second intervals and then stacking the exposures.  It is not something that will allow you to take a single several minute exposure without star trailing or star blurring.  Nowadays if that's what you are doing you don't need tracking at all since there is software that does an exceptional job of aligning the exposures.  he is alsp using a 16 megapixel camera which is much more immune than a high density modern sensor would be.  Overall the Clarkvision site is an excellent resource although over the head of most people and also significantly out of date.

I brought in three images from the B&H site to help explain the setup and the issues from the B&H Photo Link

Based on the first image, the things that aren't include are the camera, ball head and the tripod. So if you can supply those, then you have what you need to shoot wide angle shots. And as EJ just mentioned, you might need a 1/4" 20 to 3/8" 16 thread adapter to mount most ball heads we tend to use.

In this first image, the Skyguider (or ball head) is pointed North toward Polaris. (It's pointed North since your in the Northern Hemisphere. Everything is reversed for the Southern Hemisphere.) So the camera in this image is pointed toward the Celestial Equator. So to point it at the Western Horizon, it is simply a matter of panning the ball head clockwise until the camera is framing the horizon. And panning the ball head counter clockwise can get you a framing of the eastern horizon. Those two horizons, and the things near the Celestial Equator, are easy though you might need an L-Bracket to get your landscape/vertical orientation the way you want it. (Of course, you could end up with your camera upside down too!)

The harder horizons are the northern and southern horizon. To point the camera at the southern horizon, the camera needs to be angled 90° so that it looking back over the Skyguider. You can see that if the Ball head is situated just so (slightly clockwise using the first image as a reference), you can get the camera pointed toward the southern horizon with this setup. And to get the northern horizon, I'd think with the ball head in the same position you can rotate the camera to point 180° in the opposite direction which will get you the northern horizon. The northern and southern horizons will NOT end up level in your out of camera image since the tracker will be moving the camera clockwise during the exposure. To get those, you'll have to turn off the tracker and use that image as a base to the star image.

Andromeda (M31) is at declination of (about) 41.25°N so you'd need to point the camera half way between the Celestial Equator and the Celestial North Pole. Obviously, depending on your latitude, it could be near the horizon or at the zenith depending on the time of day and the time of year.



Now onto using longer lenses. In the second image, they have added declination bracket and counter weight to the system. Notice that the camera (or the telescope shown in the third image) is now pointed at the Celestial North Pole. Now this is the part I'm NOT good at. Try to image how you would frame images where the camera is NOT pointed at the north pole.

Personally, I think the image doesn't have all the piece it needs. It still needs a ball head between the declination mount and the lens. Now I think you can imagine pointing the camera at an area of the sky (or one of the horizons) with the addition of that head. Again, Andromeda (M31) might be up near the zenith or down near the northern horizon so you'll need to be able to point the system toward it easily. 



The last part of this tutorial about movement on the tracker. Obviously if this thing were to run for 12 Hours, a camera pointed toward the eastern horizon will end up pointed toward the western horizon. And on that pointed toward the North Celestial Pole will end up upside down compared to how it started 12 hours previously. I mention this since it is possible to start a 2 or 3 hour session with the camera/telescope pointed toward something and by the end, the camera/telescope might end up hitting the tripod. The longer the event, (like the 3.5 hours it takes from first contact to last contact on a Total Eclipse), the more you need to consider where the camera will end up after tracking for that long. The situation is worse with a telescope than with a lens since the telescope tends to be longer on both side from the attachment in the middle. You really don't want you camera/telescope to hit the tripod during your work.

So you can see how easy it is! That's why the astro photographers are so happy when they get images that amaze people.

Tim Zurowski wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:Ballhead will work.  What I'm saying is that you need to mount something to the tracking platform on the tracker - the threaded stud in the pictures of the ioptron.

Thanks EJ. I have never seen a tracker before, so I have no idea what a "something" is?   But if a ballhead is a something, then I have it.

See the 5th picture in the B&H link that you posted.

And while I posted that, Tony posted the pics you need

Thanks guys, and very sorry for all the "rookie" questions. Tony that was really nice of you to give all that info. While I do understand the theory and techniques required for astro photography, I have never actually done it myself, nor have I seen the gear to be used. I just want to make sure I know what I need and can keep the costs down enough to be able to afford it. I think I now have a good understanding of what I will need to get started. So I guess now I just need to order that iOptron star tracker and a 15mm Irix lens and start experimenting. I will just be starting with single exposures and then research and delve into the stacking thing later. I still do not know or understand what you actually do with each individual frame for the stacking images. I know what to do for HDR, focus stacking or panos, but no idea what you do to make each frame for astro stacking.

I just thought I'd point out that the cost of the iOptron and all it's parts is a bit more expensive than the following items: Sky-Watcher with Declination Bracket, the Base, the ball head adapter and the Counter Weight together. The specs are very similar except the Sky-Tracker version only has a 2 lbs counter weight where the iOptron has a 3 lbs one. That could be resolved by adding this counter weight. And the Sky-Watcher version has more preset speeds that might or might not be useful as well as currently being in stock at B&H if you're getting it from there. 

Thanks Tony. Yes, I did notice that they were a bit less expensive than the iOptron, but I assumed that since you bought the iOptron, and the reviews are a little bit better for it, that it might be the better option. I have no idea myself. If you were starting again with this, and wanted to keep it under $500, which would you get?

Can I assume I would only need the counterweights if I went to larger lenses (i.e. don't need them with a 15 or 24mm lens)

The bad reviews on breaking the tightener for the wedge applies to both models. I currently have a broken wedge for the iOptron that I either need to repair or replace. Note that mine broke in transit rather than in use and that can be solved by packing it more carefully.

The bad reviews on tracking accuracy and alignment issues would also apply to both models. (and I'd add the Polarie into this also.) As you go up in focal length, you need to align better and balance better to keep the tracking accuracy good enough. All the models we've talked about will have issues with this. That is one of the reasons people have been using a lot of shorter exposure shots combined rather than using one longer exposure shot.

As for the balance, I think I would want the declination bracket and some counter weights. Even a light camera and wider lens might need help as you increase the exposure time if you're pointing the camera at a weird angle compared to the north or south poles. Unfortunately, I don't have enough experience with the use of these items to know for sure when it helps and when the gear isn't up to what you're trying to do with it. And the issue with the counter weights is that's the type of thing in a travel bag that breaks other things in the bag. You need to isolate them so that don't break anything else.

So I think any of the three will work for your starting goal which is wide angle astro photography. And I think all three solutions struggle when you start tying to image M31 with a focal length between 300mm and 500mm.

Thanks Tony . . . . . so then I guess just go with the least expensive model. I do need to think more about this though, as I really do hope to (in time) use longer focal lengths. So it may be wiser to save up and get a better one that can handle a 500 or 600mm.

An important limitation of trackers is that they are only suitable for sky images.
Included land structure would blur.
I apologize if I did not notice this may have been already mentioned.