ASIAIR Plus (excited!) Recommended accessories?

sdcinvan

Hello all,

I just purchased the ASIAIR Plus and I am excited to finally get into Astrophotography with my Celestron 800 EdgeHD. 🙂

I understand that the ASIAIR only works with specific cameras, so I want to ensure that I have accessories that will work with this device. I starting with nothing. But as a beginner, I am looking for decent beginner equipment to start my new hobby.

Target object objectives are mainly the easier deep sky objects, and comets. I'll be happy with accurate 5 - 10 minute maximum exposures.

Can you please help me by recommending:
a) A guide scope. Although I own a 0.7x reducer, I'd like the flexibility to guide at 2000mm. I currently own an Orion ST80. Will that be good enough? I cost me next to nothing, so I'm willing to upgrade if it means better tracking.
Is OAG recommended?

b) Guide scope camera? Which ZWO camera is recommended polar alignment and guiding?

c) Imaging camera? Before I dare to go pro-amateur with a good/cooled monochrome imager and color wheel, I would like to try imaging with a budget general purpose color imager. Maybe a ASI385MC or similar in this price range?

d) Auto focuser - I have the Celestron model (94155-A) - will this work with the ASIAIR Plus? I hope so.

Thank you for your advice. 🙂

johnpd

a) The ST80 might be a little overkill. A nice 50mm guide scope might be better as it is lighter. I don't know how much imaging you would be doing at f/10.
b) The ZWO ASI290MM Mini is a good guide camera. It has a little more resolution and faster frame rate than the old standard ASI120MM Mini.
c) Some things to consider for an imaging camera:
--1. Color or monochrome. One shot color gives you great images and involves a lot less time to get the image.
--2. As you mentioned, cooled or not. You can get some decent images with an uncooled camera. If you want to do long exposures, cooled cameras are better.
--3. The amount of resolution the camera has. What you might want to do is download Stellarium, put in your scope at f/7, and enter the specs for a number of cameras to see what type of objects it would cover. I recently purchased the ASI533MC and love it. I am using it on a 127mm refractor at f/4.8.
--4. Of course the cost, how much you want to spend.
d) The ASIAIR only supports the ZWO EAF focuser. However you can use another focuser if you have an electronic method of focusing. Manual focusing could be done as well. Using a Bahtinov focusing mask is the best way to get sharp focus. The only disadvantage of using other than the EAF would be that if you are doing a long series of images (which would not be doing with an uncooled camera anyway), automatic adjusting focus for temperature variation would not be available.

Welcome to the world of astrophotography.

JohnD

sdcinvan

Hello JohnD,

Thank you so much for your much appreciated information for a humble beginner like me. 😀

a) The ST80 might be a little overkill. A nice 50mm guide scope might be better as it is lighter. I don't know how much
imaging you would be doing at f/10.

Just based on my observational experience (I welcome corrections to my assumptions), I figured that I'll be imaging some/many objects at f10, such as planets (tracking barely required), but also objects like the Ring Nebula M57 (and other small "bright" Messier objects) will have more detail at f/10... so I may benefit with the ST80 tracking. Besides, I already own it when I replaced the useless factory finder supplied by Celestron. It doesn't seem to burden my EQ mount.

b) The ZWO ASI290MM Mini is a good guide camera. It has a little more resolution and faster frame rate than the old
standard ASI120MM Mini.

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll put that on my shopping list. 😃

c) Some things to consider for an imaging camera:
--1. Color or monochrome. One shot color gives you great images and involves a lot less time to get the image.
--2. As you mentioned, cooled or not. You can get some decent images with an uncooled camera. If you want to do
long exposures, cooled cameras are better.
--3. The amount of resolution the camera has. What you might want to do is download Stellarium, put in your scope at
f/7, and enter the specs for a number of cameras to see what type of objects it would cover. I recently purchased the
ASI533MC and love it. I am using it on a 127mm refractor at f/4.8.

Since, I am just beginning (walk, don't run philosophy) and I would like to keep the cost down to around $400. Is that even possible to obtain satisfactory results? I'd love to do color for planets, but maybe monochrome will offer better results, and the same camera could be updated to RGBL via a color wheel? And when I've proven worthy, I can treat myself to an upgraded cooled monochrome camera and better color wheel. 🙂

So, perhaps a ASI178MM is good enough for a beginner, and for general purpose (planetary and bright deepsky objects)?

d) The ASIAIR only supports the ZWO EAF focuser. However you can use another focuser if you have an electronic

While since the ZWO EAF is discontinued... oh wait, they have a new version with a proper bracket for my EdgeHD 800.
https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/product/eaf-5v

I think I can easily sell my Celestron auto-focuser. 🙂

Welcome to the world of astrophotography.

Thank you. 🙂

ontherivet

You will have a hard time guiding at f10 or even f7 (you should get a reducer) using an external guide scope for numerous reasons. Use astronomy.tools and see what your guiding ratio will be with various combinations of imaging and guide cameras. You may want to go with an OAG to avoid frustrations as there will be a hard limit to how good your guiding can be if you are using something like an ST80 trying to guide a long focal length OTA. I would never try and use my ST80 with my C8, it just won't work very well. Try and pick imaging and guide cameras that will work together.