New setup, what can I realistically capture?

[stuartpb]

Hi all, new lad here. I'm a keen photographer who has always had an interest in astronomy but never married the two until recently. My usual flavour of photography is landscapes and urban. I want to get into astrophotography but don't have a massive budget and also don't want to spend a fortune on kit until I have gained some experience. I've spent hours watching video tutorials and reading/watching reviews. That has helped but also hindered in some way too as the options are wide and varied. 

 

I ended up choosing wide field astrophotography to start with. This is the kit I've purchased so far:

 

Mount: Sky Watcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro Mount.
Telescope: Sky Watcher 72ED Refractor Telescope, with stock dovetail removed and longer one added. Also added a dovetail clamp to aid balance.
Additional Optics: StellaMira 2″ Field Flattener with T / M42 Adapter
Camera: Fuji X-T3 with T Adaptor
Guide scope: ZWO 120mm Mini Guide Scope
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120MM-Mini
Additional Hardware: ZWO ASIAIR
Tripod: INNOREL RT80C Carbon Fibre Tripod
Power: 3x USB2/3 Power bricks, 1 with PD (Power Delivery) for camera, 1 for mount and 1 with PD (Power Delivery) for ASIAIR device.

 

I wanted a mount and telescope which are as portable as possible, as I hike into and out of a lot of locations for my photography. All the above kit fits in my 75l rucksack with my camping gear stowed in the outer pockets and the top of the sack.

 

So my question is, what can I reasonably hope to capture with this set up? 

 

Thanks,

 

Stuart

[TerryMcK]

Hi Stuart welcome to the forum. You have a decent amount of kit there and you will be able to capture all sorts of DSO's and some of the bigger galaxies. 

[Dmack1]

Hi there, and welcome to the boards.

 

The 72 ED with 420mm is at the upper-end of what the star adventurer is going to handle weight and Focal length wise, so you will need to take extra care to balance everything properly. Also you will need to take extra care with Polar alignment. I found doing the manual PA with the SA to be difficult to do really accurately - A right angle view finder helped. But since you have it set up with a guidescope you could do PA with sharpcap which should give you very accurate results easily and quickly.

 

I dont know the Fuji cameras at all but I'm assuming it is not astro-modified? That will make some of the targets a bit more difficult but not (in my opinion anyway) impossible.

 

Once you have got it well balanced and PA'd you have a great range of targets. Unfortunately we are moving in to galaxy season which means that many of the  larger nebulae and galaxies as past optimal location but;

 

Orion is still good - there you have M42 which is a good place to start although the bright core can make it a bit tricky and best results come from combining longer and shorter duration images. Then you could get a nice widefield of the Horshead and flame nebulae.

 

M45 (Pleiades) is still do-able and would be a great fit for your FL and unmodded camera. Though you may be limited to 3 hours or so per night at the moment.

 

As we move into late spring/summer and the milkyway comes back then your options really open up with lots of targets in Cygnus (North American and pelican nebulae, the areas around sadr)

 

Also, you say you are a keen landscape photograper, so remember that you can put you camera with a 50mm or smaller lens on your camera, bolt it onto the star adventurer and get absolutely stunning nightscape images. Many of my favourite images right now are widefields of heavily nebulous and dark nebulae regions and are being produced with a 135mm lens (the most popular for astro is the Samyang or Rokinon).

 

Hope this helps.