I’ve heard on more than one occasion “the mount is the most important part of your astrophotography setup.” That’s usually followed with “focus more on the mount than the telescope” when it comes to putting together your imaging rig. Without a firm foundation a house is doomed to collapse. These suggestions and recommendations are sound.
It’s important to choose a mount and tripod that are stable, rigid, precise in their tracking abilities, rated to accept the total weight you plan to place on them during your imaging sessions and well tested with accessible and repeatable results. When it comes to stability and tracking for astrophotography your mount had better perform as advertised or your images will suffer no matter how much money you pour into your telescope and imaging cameras.
I recently took the plunge and bought astrophotography gear including a telescope, a German equatorial mount, guide-scope and camera, and DSLR. Getting serious about taking long exposure images of the night sky, and most importantly having them turn out decent, in most cases is an expensive endeavor.
Tripod mounted Nikon D60
I have enjoyed taking unguided images of the night sky for years. Its pretty simple. Get a camera, put it on a tripod, adjust the ISO and exposure length to the film or CMOS sensor and then see what you get. I have a page on this web site where I have listed tips on how to create those types of shots. That goes back to the not so distant days of film and having to wait days to get your results.
While I was experimenting with star trail shots, various films, lenses, telescopes, ISO settings and exposures, I longed for the proper gear to take images of objects in the night sky to a much greater degree. By that I mean tracking faint objects of interest and taking multiple exposures that can then be combined or “stacked” using software such as DeepSkyStacker to produce a final image which is then processed in Adobe Photoshop or other photo editing software to bring out the fine details. Well, I’m finally at that point close to twenty years into this hobby.
In my next few blog posts I’ll outline the individual components of my new astrophotography rig. I’ll let you know what equipment I’m using, why I choose it specifically and how it’s worked out for me thus far. I’ll also share my first images and talk about what I’ve learned.
Current amateur astronomy information such as points of interest and events in the night sky, star party dates, educational information, telescopes buying tips and much more.
