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marell
newbie
Reged: 12/31/07
Posts: 3
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This is my first post to the group. I was considering a purchase of the iOptron cube along with a small(66mm) refractor to use for video observing and possibly wide field imaging with my dslr and camera lens. I read the groups comments about the cube and was wondering if anyone had tried to use it this way. I'm glad I read your comments before making my purchase.
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Michael Miles
professor emeritus
Reged: 02/11/05
Posts: 677
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Hi Marell:
You can use an alt-az mount for widefield astrophotography. I use my Orion Teletrack for that, but you need astrophoto software which will de-rotate the field. The exposures also need to be short, so going deep doesn't work too well. The Teletrack can apparently be used in equatorial mode with a wedge, and that would allow for a longer exposure with drift alignment, but I don't know if the iOptron can.
More info and astrophotos here:
http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1763566/page/0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/3/vc/1
Michael
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LXD-75 w/
Stellarvue 102ED
Hardin 10" Newt
Antares 8" Newt
Meade AR-5
Meade N-6
Celestron 102mm refractor
Canon 300D, Meade DSI guiding
Edited by Michael Miles (01/01/08 12:26 PM)
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marell
newbie
Reged: 12/31/07
Posts: 3
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Thanks for the reply Michael. I've got the software to deal with the field rotation and I'm planning on using short exposures. I'm looking for something that is very easy to set up and cheap. I'm not asking for too much :>). I already have a G11 but I'm getting a little lazy.
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Jim Carpenter
sage
Reged: 04/24/03
Posts: 297
Loc: Usually here, sometimes there
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My experience with the iOptron as a visual mount was not great, and I can't imagine that it would be any better for AP. In all honesty, once you got the mount aligned and found the object, tracking wasn't half bad. However, with the horrible play in the gears, I would suspect that PEC would be off the charts.
If I recall from the manual, I believe there is an optional wedge adapter for it, and if not you could probably quickly fabricate one. That way you wouldn't have to deal with the field rotation issue.
Jim
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gordianknot
professor emeritus
Reged: 09/04/05
Posts: 542
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I've done some planetary web cam imaging on it and it's worked, though not perfectly. The planet tends to drift so that within a couple minutes it goes off the screen of an SPC900NC at 2600 mm. At 5200 mm, it is far worse. The mount is sufficiently shaky that an object that was centered at 2600 mm may no longer be in the frame at 5200 mm because of the process of replacing the camera and adding the barlow.
The hand controller also doesn't tend to respond well to minute adjustments so you are often hesitant to recenter an object while taking video. Also, focusing is a pain because the mount is so shaky there tends to be motion blur in the video until you remove your hand from the focuser and give it a few seconds to settle down.
All that said, the results I got were actually pretty good. I definitely wouldn't try exposures of a length greater than, say a second, at any focal length.
Sample Images (SPC900NC on Apex 102 Mak Cass at f/26):
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erikgigem
newbie
Reged: 01/02/08
Posts: 3
Loc: Peachtree City, GA
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I haven't had much luck with my iOptron cube yet for photography. Every picture came out with star-streaks. Although I've been having issues with it tracking accurately the stars. It seems to drift over 10 minutes.
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-Erik
WO ZS 66mm SD Refractor
WO SPL 12.5mm, 6mm, 3mm
iOptron GPS Goto Mount
Canon 400D DSLR
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Talstarone
Vendor (Inner Planetary Products)
Reged: 09/12/06
Posts: 7907
Loc: Benson, North Carolina
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I would like to issue a Warm Welcome to Cloudy Nights to both marell and erikgigem.I hope any and all information you may need you will find here at Cloudy Nights.
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Todd C.
Celestron NexStar 4SE(102mm F/13)Maksutov-Cass
www.innerplanetaryproducts.com
Meteorites and More....
"Outer Space at Down to Earth Prices"
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tommyhawk13
professor emeritus
Reged: 09/28/07
Posts: 739
Loc: Jacksonville, Fl
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Quote:
I haven't had much luck with my iOptron cube yet for photography. Every picture came out with star-streaks. Although I've been having issues with it tracking accurately the stars. It seems to drift over 10 minutes.
This is where the wedge would come in handy.
Any exposure that long will equire precise polar alignment.
Believe me, I've got lots of pictures of star trails from an equatorial mount that I thought was polar aligned.
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Meade Starfinder 8,Meade SN-8 OTA, Orion Atlas, and a handfull of film cameras
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erikgigem
newbie
Reged: 01/02/08
Posts: 3
Loc: Peachtree City, GA
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An equitorial mount and a large telescope is on the wish list. Just getting my feet wet. Seeing what I can pull off in photography on this iOptron cube. Its quite challenging for someone starting out. Patience and lots of reading on CloudyNights and other resources..
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-Erik
WO ZS 66mm SD Refractor
WO SPL 12.5mm, 6mm, 3mm
iOptron GPS Goto Mount
Canon 400D DSLR
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Starman1
Vendor - Scope City
Reged: 06/24/03
Posts: 12490
Loc: Los Angeles
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The iOptron mount is a rubbery, flexi-flyer (if you understand that reference). I don't consider it an astrophotographer's mount, even for the briefest of exposures.
However, if shooting the moon at 1/500 to 1/250 sec, the
blurred images can always be discarded and you'd still have hundreds of shots to stack.
But forget deep-sky. The lowest price mount I'd even consider for photography would be the CG4 Celestron with a dual-axis dirive added. You can't buy the mount separately, but for $429 you can get a 6" f/5 scope on the mount with the mount thrown in, and this would be OK for some basic photography.
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Don Pensack
12.5" Truss Dob, 5" Maksutov, Fujinon Binos
Sustaining Lifetime IDA member
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