Organizing Astronomy Gear
Over the snowy Mother's Day weekend, I spent a little bit of time sorting out and organizing some of my astronomy gear indoors in this warmth. The priority was to find a way to organize a bunch of eyepieces.
Fortunately, I have been sticking to putting together specific mini sets so it is not like I have a scattered selection of mismatched eyepieces. I've been purposely purchasing eyepieces that will fit my specific needs... including staying within financial limits.
I have stuck with a plan of putting together small cases for grab-and-go use. It will be easy to grab one of these cases and a small telescope if I'm in a hurry to see something. Each zippered case is approximately 6"x9" and 2" deep.
I put together a small set of GSO Plossls. These are quite inexpensive but are pretty good eyepieces. With each set, I included a 2.5x Barlow lens so I only included long, wide view eyepieces with long eye relief. I wear eyeglasses so my primary concern is eye relief and, for me, that eye relief needs to be 18mm or greater. This little GSO set will come in handy.
This Orion Expanse set was one I put together first a couple of years ago. They are advertised as "long eye relief eyepieces" but a couple of them don't work for me. This is how I learned that I require 18+mm of eye relief. I have the set though so I put it in one of these cases and tagged it. It is a decent set for those who don't wear eyeglasses.
Now this one, below, is more of a higher end kit. It includes a Baader Hyperion 24mm, a Baader Hyperion 17mm and a GSO 2.5x Barlow. These eyepieces are very comfortable to use with long eye relief and huge top eye lenses. I would have preferred to add the Hyperion 36mm to this set too but the eyepieces are too large to fit in these small cases. (I do have a large case for my complete Baader eyepiece set that is a combination of shorter focal length Morpheus eyepieces and longer focal length Hyperion eyepieces.)
Until now, I've been using my Sony a6000 and my Sony a7 cameras for imaging the night skies and solar imaging. These two cameras certainly have their place in astrophotography but there are other situations where a dedicated astro-camera is a far better tool for the job. These two cameras sport Sony's newest sensors designed specifically for astrophotography (although, I could probably use them for my microscope too... I'll have to give that a shot sometime soon). One camera is monochrome and the other is color.
The monochrome camera will be ideal for solar imaging as well as to use as a guide camera. It could also be used for lunar images. Monochrome imagery is crisper than color so I'm looking forward to giving this a shot on imaging the moon.
The color camera would be good for planetary imaging. It could also be used for smaller objects in the night sky. It has a relatively small sensor so it does narrow the view quite a bit compared to my Sony cameras. For larger objects, I still have my Sony a6000 and Sony a7. These two astro cameras will allow my imagery to take a serious jump in quality when used to their strengths.
These two QHY astro cameras are quite small. Here it is mounted on my small 50mm guide scope. This combo will be used to lock onto a star and then the camera will send micro directions to my mount on how to stay locked onto its target while I shoot long exposure images.
And, here is a closeup of this tiny camera...
So, I managed to do a little organizing this past weekend. I'm looking forward to testing these two cameras in the near future.
Fortunately, I have been sticking to putting together specific mini sets so it is not like I have a scattered selection of mismatched eyepieces. I've been purposely purchasing eyepieces that will fit my specific needs... including staying within financial limits.
I have stuck with a plan of putting together small cases for grab-and-go use. It will be easy to grab one of these cases and a small telescope if I'm in a hurry to see something. Each zippered case is approximately 6"x9" and 2" deep.
I put together a small set of GSO Plossls. These are quite inexpensive but are pretty good eyepieces. With each set, I included a 2.5x Barlow lens so I only included long, wide view eyepieces with long eye relief. I wear eyeglasses so my primary concern is eye relief and, for me, that eye relief needs to be 18mm or greater. This little GSO set will come in handy.
This Orion Expanse set was one I put together first a couple of years ago. They are advertised as "long eye relief eyepieces" but a couple of them don't work for me. This is how I learned that I require 18+mm of eye relief. I have the set though so I put it in one of these cases and tagged it. It is a decent set for those who don't wear eyeglasses.
Now this one, below, is more of a higher end kit. It includes a Baader Hyperion 24mm, a Baader Hyperion 17mm and a GSO 2.5x Barlow. These eyepieces are very comfortable to use with long eye relief and huge top eye lenses. I would have preferred to add the Hyperion 36mm to this set too but the eyepieces are too large to fit in these small cases. (I do have a large case for my complete Baader eyepiece set that is a combination of shorter focal length Morpheus eyepieces and longer focal length Hyperion eyepieces.)
Until now, I've been using my Sony a6000 and my Sony a7 cameras for imaging the night skies and solar imaging. These two cameras certainly have their place in astrophotography but there are other situations where a dedicated astro-camera is a far better tool for the job. These two cameras sport Sony's newest sensors designed specifically for astrophotography (although, I could probably use them for my microscope too... I'll have to give that a shot sometime soon). One camera is monochrome and the other is color.
The monochrome camera will be ideal for solar imaging as well as to use as a guide camera. It could also be used for lunar images. Monochrome imagery is crisper than color so I'm looking forward to giving this a shot on imaging the moon.
The color camera would be good for planetary imaging. It could also be used for smaller objects in the night sky. It has a relatively small sensor so it does narrow the view quite a bit compared to my Sony cameras. For larger objects, I still have my Sony a6000 and Sony a7. These two astro cameras will allow my imagery to take a serious jump in quality when used to their strengths.
These two QHY astro cameras are quite small. Here it is mounted on my small 50mm guide scope. This combo will be used to lock onto a star and then the camera will send micro directions to my mount on how to stay locked onto its target while I shoot long exposure images.
And, here is a closeup of this tiny camera...
So, I managed to do a little organizing this past weekend. I'm looking forward to testing these two cameras in the near future.
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