I just purchased an Orion G3 Mono and thought I would write this mini Orion G3 Monochrome CCD review.
As many of you know I am pretty fascinated with spectroscopy, or the use of the spectrum of light emitted by or reflected off an object to determine its chemical makeup. I have been working on this with a DSLR for a while and it does a fairly good job for just getting my feet wet. Unfortunately the filters on the sensor of a DSLR skew the results pretty badly towards the red end, and the sensor is too sensitive to certain colors (trying to make up for the way the human eye sees).
I had been told that the way to do it with more accuracy is to use a monochrome CCD. One of the more popular ones to start out with in these types of spectroscopy seems to be the Orion CCD cameras including the Orion G3 Mono, so I bought one. Some nice advantages are that this camera is only about $499 retail (cheaper on Amazon) so it is fairly inexpensive as far as CCDs are concerned, it is very small and light weight, it has cooling built in so the images have less noise than an uncooled camera, and it has a 1.25″ threaded nosepiece so the grating filter I use will screw right onto it.
I plan on redoing all my spectral images with the Orion G3 Mono and comparing my results from it to what I achieved with my DSLR. It will be interesting to see how close they are. I may even leave the DSLR images up so you can see the comparison for yourself.
The first few runs with the camera have proven hopeful. I am not too sure I like the software which comes with it so I am going to try it with my standards imaging software and see what happens. More to come!
You can get more information, read more reviews, or purchase this monochrome CCD.
The Huntsville astronomy club (Huntsville Amateur Astronomy Society) in Huntsville Texas is finally getting ready to move to a new website, complete with image galleries and a forum of our very own. The new address is www.huntsvilleastronomy.org and should feature a lot of great information not just for those in our area, but for anyone interested in astronomy in general. Come on by and take a look!
Once you are finished looking at the new site be sure to email us tell us when you would like to come out to a meeting and meet the gang. We meet at the SHSU observatory which you can find with this Huntsville Texas Map that has the observatory marked. There is a lot of stuff going on in Huntsville astronomy!
The website has a lot of cool information, a forum where you can communicate with other people, tons of astrophotography from our members, astronomy related weather forecasts, an all sky camera so you can see what the sky looks like at the observatory in real time, links to our member’s websites, and much more.
We meet on a pretty irregular schedule so check the website or email a member for information on the next upcoming meeting. Everyone is welcome, there are no dues, show up, have fun!
Thinking about getting into astronomy or astrophotography and not know where to start? Start by coming to a meeting or contacting the club and we will be more than happy to give you a tour, show you our equipment, and help you decide what you want to do. We can also help make equipment purchase decisions (although you can start a great astronomy hobby with just your eyes or a pair of binoculars!).
Are you a student at SHSU? Be sure to take the SHSU astronomy class! Our Huntsville Astronomy Club president is the instructor so you are sure to have a blast.
Here is a schedule to see when official things are happening at the SHSU astronomy observatory.
Come on out and join us for some astronomy in Huntsville Texas.
After looking through a lot of eyepieces my go to eyepieces are my Orion Stratus eyepieces. Hopefully this will help you understand why.
Although I am primarily an astrophotographer and so I spend far less time looking through an eyepiece than I do a computer monitor, I still like quality views when I do a little visual.
Like most people, I started with the eyepieces that came with my first telescope. While they did indeed provide a view, once I tried a nice eyepiece I was smitten. There was obviously more contrast making objects easier to pick out, more of the field of view was in nice sharp focus, there was a much wider field of view and last but certainly not least, it was much easier to look through the better eyepieces as they had more eye relief.
Eyepieces generally represent half of the optics in a telescope which should give you a hint as to their importance to the views that you get. The typical problem with any quality product, especially a quality optical product, is they can get very expensive quickly. One can start at the bottom of telescope eyepieces for around $20 each and then move up to the top of the line at over $600 each. I wanted as much quality as I could afford, so where was the best bang for my buck?
Above is my collection of Orion Stratus eyepieces, available from Amazon, including the 24mm, 13mm, 8mmand 5mm. At around $140 each these eyepieces have the specs to put them right in the middle of the pack so I thought they would be a good place to start.
General specifications: Apparent FOV: 68 degrees Elements: 8 Eye relief: 20mm Filter threads: Yes Rubber eyeguards:Yes Material: Aluminum Weight: Approximately 1 pound Barrel size: Both 1.25″ and 2″ without adapter
For those who have only used the eyepieces that came with their scopes these will seem huge and heavy. They average just over 2″ in diameter and roughly a pound. In comparison the typical Plossl eyepiece shipped with starter telescopes is less than 1.5″ in diameter and weighs about a quarter pound.
Right off the bat you realize that the Orion Stratus eyepieces are large eyepieces and are nice to hold on to, and the rubber grips on these do not disappoint. In cold weather with gloves or in the Texas heat with sweat covered hands I had no problem holding on to these things. I have never even come close to dropping one.
The most striking thing in switching from a higher powered Plossl to one of these is the eye relief, or distance your eye has to be to get a nice complete image. On the higher powered Plossl eyepieces your eye has to be over the tiny little optical window at just the right distance and any slight movement will cause image problems. These all have large optical windows and plenty of room to move around without distorting your view. Although I do not wear glasses, I can see where people who do would love these.
I primarily use these in my refractors (f6.5 and f7) and find that they provide very nice views. On faster scopes such as an f4.9 Dobsonian you can start to see some coma in the outer 10% on the wider 24mm and perhaps a little on the 13mm.
My favorite eyepiece is the 24mm and while it certainly is no TeleVue 22mm Nagler, it provides excellent widefield views of the sky.
The attention to detail is nice, for example the white painted numbers denoting the focal length on the side of the eyepiece are very large which makes them easier to see out in the dark. The rubber eyecup seems pretty durable while being more than soft enough to be very comfortable. There is a groove machined into the 1.25″ barrel to help make sure it can not come lose from smaller telescopes. The threads for filters are a nice touch and make it convenient for using a moon or polarizing filter.
In a world filled with eyepiece choices how would I rank these in terms of performance for the amount paid? Honestly I wish they were just a tad cheaper and I would give them top honors, although I do believe they are an excellent buy.
Two alternatives are the William Optics SWANs for a little less money and the William Optics UWANs for a little more money, both of which are also excellent eyepieces.
If however you want eyepieces that will not disappoint, fit in both 1.25″ and 2″ focusers without an adapter and especially if you can get them on sale, the Orion Stratus eyepieces are a solid contender for all but the most demanding situations.
I do still have some inexpensive Plossl style eyepieces like the ones that come with some better starter telescopes that I keep around for various uses and comparisons.
Bottom line, when I want to view something in my inexpensive 90mm refractor, my much more expensive 110mm APO refractor, or the University’s very expensive 16″ SCT, I reach for one of the Orion Stratus eyepieces, get yours from Amazon.
Astronomy forums can be helpful as finding information online can be a challenge, particularly if you are looking for something specific like astronomy. Sure, there is a ton of easy to access information, but it never seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. After looking around for a couple of years and participating on many astronomy forums I decided I would share a little of my impressions with some of what I see as the better online forums dedicated to astronomy. Here you can not only read tons of static information, but also ask specific questions and get direct answers from people who have “been there and done that”.
stargazerslounge.com
Stargazers Lounge is my favorite general astronomy forums with tons of friendly and knowledgeable people ready to help. As one of the largest astronomy forums online (over two million posts and 1,500 unique visitors a day) you are sure to find tons of valuable information and some wonderful astrophotography as well. They round out the information in the forums with tons of user blogs and a wonderful calendar showing celestial events as well as meetings and events local to England and surrounding areas. If I could only pick one place to hang out, shoot the breeze and learn something at the same time this would be my choice.
cloudynights.com
Cloudy Nights has quite a lot of great information and some excellent reviews but also has a reputation for being a little more abrasive than other astronomy forums. Although no one has ever been rude to me in any way, I have seen a few rather heated conversations. That aside, no forum I have found has anywhere near the quantity and quality of product reviews these astronomy forums have. There are also some very knowledgeable people here so there is always great information to be had. In addition to the forums they have the excellent Cloudy Nights classifieds section with tons of items and a nice articles section with what looks like over a hundred how-to articles. If I wanted one place to learn as much as possible, and didn’t mind watching my Ps and Qs, this would be the astronomy forums for me.
astromart.com/forums
Astromart is well known in astronomy circles as the place to find used astronomy equipment online. What they don’t tell you is that they have a pretty nice little set of astronomy forums there as well although it is primarily aimed at equipment information and discussion. If you have any questions such as what part fits this, or what adapters you need to mount this on that, then I would recommend trying here.
iceinspace.com.au
Ice In Space is a fairly good sized forum primarily aimed at Australia but still contains some excellent information for anyone. Add to that a friendly mix of people and some high quality astrophotography and it is a very nice destination. For me, this forum presents a nice change of pace since it is in the Southern Hemisphere so I get to see astrophotography that I will probably never get to shoot myself.
astronomyshed.co.uk
The Astronomy Shed is another one of those places that is well known for something other than its astronomy forums, in this case it is some excellent video tutorials. If you like video tutorials, particularly ones dealing with do-it-yourself projects, this is a great place to spend some quality time.
Getting Started: Long Exposure Astrophotography is finally here! As some of you may know I have been working on a book that expanded on my original 19 page cobbled together booklet from over a year ago. Now, about a year, more than 220 pictures, 61,000 words and 346 pages later, the ultimate astrophotography how to is finally finished and ready for sale. If you are thinking about getting started in astrophotography, this is for you.
You can find out more about the book here: https://www.allans-stuff.com/leap join the discussion board for the book here: https://www.allans-stuff.com/forum and if you like, purchase the book here: https://amzn.to/2J8K1hR It should appear on all the Amazon websites (US and Europe for now) within 5-7 days but is available on the link above for immediate shipment. Thanks to everyone who made this possible! I hope you all enjoy the book.
The book covers everything you need to know to get started including topics such as general astrophotography equipment, DSLR astrophotography, astrophotography software, and much more.
Here is the description directly from Amazon:
A primer and a fully-formed, practical format for entering the world of long exposure astrophotography, Allan Hall’s Getting Started: Long Exposure astrophotography brings the rewarding pursuit of stellar imaging to your bedside table. With academic flare and his signature approachability, Hall utilizes a suite of formats to provide readers with everything they need to begin – and develop. From charts, images, purchasing guides, walkthroughs and detailed descriptions, this Getting Started title is an in-depth resource for today’s astrophotographer at any level of their discipline.
Leading up to an incredibly useful list of the first twenty-five objects an astrophotographer might image with long exposures, this Getting Started title also offers a range of equipment advice and grounded descriptions of why certain phenomenon occur – as well as what they will mean for you and your shoots.
Though founded in the clarity and precision of science and photography, astrophotography can nonetheless be one of the most artistic and even sensual crafts, as well as one of the most daunting. A road map is essential when pursuing a rich experience imaging and cataloguing the night sky. Getting Started: Long Exposure Astrophotography, with over 200 illustrations, images, charts and graphs bolstering its clear and instructive text,
takes readers from practical equipment purchases, savvy preparations, and understanding of heavenly bodies, with the proper – and smart – ways to capture their expansive sight, intimate motion, and breathtaking portraitry.
From purchasing your first astrophotography telescope, hooking up your camera, taking long exposure images, and finally processing that finished image, this book is rich with provisions and tips. Hall expertly balances his own procedures with general and inclusive guides from set-up to software recommendations.
So, if you have ever wanted to take photographs of glowing nebulae, spiral galaxies and shimmering star clusters, this is the reference you want on your desk as well as with you out under the sky.
A journey begins, with Hall exploring in-depth details of field rotation and focusing methods, as well as explaining not just the what and how, but the ever important why. So you won’t just follow instructions for multiple image stacking, you’ll understand the effect and craft of it. And the descriptions of atmospheric phenomenon affecting imaging won’t end there, but lead you to experiments in which you can observe and understand.
For today’s astrophotographers, access is key. Encouragingly, there is more than ever in many ways. From the quality of equipment that you can purchase to the ready availability of software and meteorological information, it’s a photographer’s dream in many ways. Let this unprecedented scenario work for you, whether you’re looking to take your first photos or enhance your development as a long-exposure cosmic curator.
From start to finish, Allan Hall’s Getting Started: Long Exposure Astrophotography is your comprehensive resource, taking you from entrance to expertise in the rewarding field of astrophotography – with a focus on the long exposure element that makes for such memorable, lifelong pieces of photography.
At some point most of us need a portable power station or source out in the field. Some of the ones from the telescope manufacturer’s can be a little pricey. Most of us also have a department store in reasonable distance. Most of those department stores carry units like this so I decided to see what they had on the shelves that might work. It really wouldn’t be much of a review if I didn’t have something to compare it to so I will be comparing the Schumacher Portable Power Station XP2260 from Amazon to the Orion Dynamo Pro 17Ah Power Station.
Schumacher XP2260 specifications: Amp hours: 22 12DC outlets: 2 120VAC outlets: 2 USB ports: 1 Shows charge level: Yes Weight: 25 lbs Warranty: 1 year Est price: $117
Orion Dynamo Pro 17Ah: Amp hours: 17 12DC outlets: 2 120VAC outlets: 0 USB ports: 2 Shows charge level: No Weight: 16 lbs Warranty: 90 days Est price: $140
Looking at the specs it seems that the Schumacher XP2260 has more power, a built in AC inverter, a longer warranty, a digital readout of the percentage of battery charge, and a longer warranty. It also costs less.
Celestron offers one as well called the Power Tank 17 12v Power Supply. It shares pretty much the same specifications and price as the Orion model.
The Orion comes out on top if you want a built in radio, brighter light, red light, or the ability to power other items with the included charging adapters for DC devices. Unfortunately none of this appeals to me, or for that matter, anyone else I know of in astronomy.
The Schumacher comes out on top because in addition to the superior specs, the it has a wider base and is shorter than the Orion unit making it much more stable sitting on the ground. It would also be more stable in the trunk of your car. The Orion and Celestron models just about have to be transported on their side or they will fall over the first time you hit the brakes.
On the Schumacher I am not particularly pleased with the 12V ports as they seem to come lose very easily. It very well may be the type of 12V connector I am plugging into it. I resolved the issue by using a splitter cable which plugs into the battery unit and then allows me to plug in two power adapters.
After using both battery units for a while I would be hard pressed to recommend the Orion over the Schumacher XP2260 with one catch. I would venture to guess that if you had your Orion telescope plugged into the Orion unit and something went horribly wrong with your telescope due to power issues, they would cover it under warranty. This assumes that both the mount and battery unit were under warranty to start with. If however that same thing happened while plugged into the Schumacher unit, I seriously doubt that either company would cover anything.
While I admit this is complete conjecture, the small price difference between the two units is a small price to pay for the extra insurance assuming you are buying a new telescope and power unit at the same time. The bottom line is that while I certainly would not purchase a telescope from a department store, I absolutely would recommend a battery unit from one.
I own both the Schumacher XP2260 and the Orion unit and while both are nice, the Schumacher XP2260 goes out every time I think I might need portable power.
Last month I purchased the iOptron SmartStar E R80 available from Amazon as part of my work on a new book I am working on and needed a low budget solution for AP and this iOptron telescope seemed to fit the bill. You can’t really write about budget AP if you are using thousands of dollars worth of mounts and scopes to get the images, now can you? So after looking around I decided on this iOptron SmartStar for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it uses a side mount so the camera presents less of an interference problem with the mount. I thought this would be the perfect cheap astrophotography telescope. It arrived in one small box, here it is with a 12″ scale on top of the box to give you an idea of size, being inspected by my postal inspector:
Inside that box is a lot of smaller boxes, again requiring inspection:
First out was the mount head, hand controller and cable:
Next was the scope and accessories:
I wasn’t expecting much from this iOptron SmartStar, and as I expected, the bulk of it felt like cheap plastic. The scope, the focuser, the mount, all pretty much plastic. The build quality was better than I expected for a budget telescope in the $250 range, but was still cheap. What I did not expect however, was how well the SmartStar R80 Computerized Telescope performed…
Once hooked up and pointed roughly south (odd I thought since all the other scopes I have need to point north) I told it where to go, it went, more or less to the right area of the sky but definitely not on target. Once you sync it to a couple of stars however it is remarkably accurate. In fact, using a low power eyepiece you are virtually assured to get any target in your field of view on the first attempt.
This isn’t impressive on my SkyView Pro or Sirius setups, in fact, “in the field of view” is not acceptable for them, they need to be dead center of the field of view. But when you consider this scope and mount combination cost about one third of what my cheapest goto EQ mount alone cost, it is impressive indeed.
The next impressive thing is the views. How good can a 80mm budget telescope with a cheap plastic tube and a cheap plastic diagonal and a cheap mostly plastic eyepiece be? Better than I expected! In the same league as my other scopes? Well, no, of course not, but far better than the price tag would lead you to believe. In fact, one of the things I thought when I bought this setup was I could swap out the scope for a nice ED doublet, a dielectric diagonal and a real EP and use it as a nice little grab and go scope. While I still may do that I certainly am in no rush as the views of M42, the moon, and Jupiter were quite reasonable.
The one place I was not impressed was the tripod. Stability was not this thing’s middle name, not even its great grandfather’s middle name. Light weight, sure. Easy to transport and set up, yup. Stable, not even a little. The good news is that if ever there was a cheap scope and mount that was worth spending a little money on finding a slightly heavier tripod, this is it.
The basic setup of this iOptron SmartStar comes with the mount, tripod, hand controller, AC adapter (can also run off batteries), 80mm scope, 45 degree diagonal, 25mm and 10mm eyepieces. So over all would I recommend this setup? Absolutely. In fact, if anyone asks me for a suggestion on what scope to get someone showing a faint interest in astronomy without breaking the bank, instead of the normal 8″ Dob a lot of people insist on suggesting, this will be my scope of choice.
Light weight, easy to use, reasonable views, and a nice selection of targets you can just press a button and slew to without doing a lot of star hopping. This should be a real winner for newcomers to the hobby who want a budget telescope and if I had one of these back in the day instead of that awful reflector I started with, I would have never given up astronomy for all those years.
All ratings considering price:
Views: ****
Stability: **
Ease of use: ****
Accessories: ****
Overall: ****
If you would like purchase an iOptron SmartStar E R80 for yourself, please use my link: iOptron SmartStar to help offset the cost of maintaining this website.
including the 24mm, 
, 
and 
. At around $140 each these eyepieces have the specs to put them right in the middle of the pack so I thought they would be a good place to start.
, it provides excellent widefield views of the sky.
to the 
.
It shares pretty much the same specifications and price as the Orion model.
