I am wondering why there was a street light.... therefore I thought you are under a hill.

I recommend you Meade Telescopes

You may refer to the products guide. For a beginner, ETX-90PE/AT is a wiser choice. AT costs 3900 while PE costs 4500. The prices on www.meade.com is not the price we can get here. If you want the price list, pls give me your email address, I will post you the price list in .xls format. I hope you manage to buy a telescope.

If you don't have enough money and just want to do normal observing ( a wider view but you can't see the surface of planets or moon. ), I suggest you to get a binocular. Many of the experienced observer such as SkyAndTelescope editors use binoculars most of the time.

sorry lah, I thot you were checking on my nocturnal activities.

walao......so can you tell me where were you when you took that photo? By the way, where did you buy your star chart?

If i told you that i'd have to shoot you. And don't ask what i was doing.....

It was given to me by a star crazy relative many, many years ago (he bought from overseas somewhere) as a Xmas gift. I haven't learnt to ID even 0.0000001% of the stars yet. I forget faster than i can remember.
Seriously, I'd be happy if I can remember and locate 1% of the stars in this set of charts before I die.......but i doubt anyone can do it. Anyone knows how many stars there are in our galaxy alone?
But nowadays easier to use planetarium software to learn astronomy. Using star charts is good if you prefer direct viewing with a large aperture telescope (the old fashioned way). This needs a lot of patience and mosquito repellent.
BTW i'm still using a pair of binoculars......good advice, Mr.LKM!

I think I know what were you doing at that time
A pair of binocular is always a good choice When you use it, you must have a star chart with you.

Hey guys, don't forget to look at MARS at 2/3 October. I don't what is the exact time, can anyone tell me?

Hey, this topic has been slept for a long time...... Therefore, are you guys planning to get a telescope or binocular?

Sorry for the wrong information I gave, the exact time of the closest meeting of Mars should be 29 October.

Hello, allow me to introduce a group to the members here about the astronomy photography - Astrophotography Group of Malaysia. Please feel free to visit the website for astrophotos which are mostly taken in Malaysia: Astrophotography Group of Malaysia

I'm surprised that astrophoto has been overwhelmingly discussed in this forum as well as Malaysia.

Please do comment on the photos taken by APGM. And we wish to promote astronomy to members of public as well as astrophoto to those who feel like to give it a try.

In my opinion, telescope is not necessary a key factor to get a good celestial photo but a tracking system (motorized setup to compensate the Earth's rotation). Even a wide-angle lens, or 200mm tele-lens would give you excellent results with certain conditions applied. You'll find that many photos in APGM's web are by camera lenses apart from planetary close-up shots.

Clear skies,
choostar

Woooaaa, here come the heavyweights!!!! Make way, make way!

March05,
You are very good in this field.... maybe we shall work something out for this special interest. And I believe that our members are very pleased to meet you guys for taking astro photos.

FYI, "Astronomy Fair @ USJ Summit" has been tentatively scheduled in mid November 2005. It's another good platform for enthusiasts of astronomy as well as photography.

You can bet I'll be there. USJ is my backyard lah. Can talk-talk plenty star crazy folks!

Mid November 2005? Hooray! March05, let's go together.

In my opinion, a telescope is an important factor as well as equipped with equatorial mount or altaz mount. It is because a telescope with a good coating can help a lot as it accept more lights to go into it. In the other way, most of the tracking systems available in the market are quite good in quality. Most of the us will go for GOTO telescope as it has already been equipped with tracking mount and easy to observe the celestial objects. It is easy to use too. These types of telescopes are very useful beginner as its automatic system.

APGM? Just registered a account there

Ya, we go show how the LYN Astrophoto Group (u lah) shoot down the one and only blue moon of Malaysia!

Nice to have u here Choostar..

Mr.LKM....we definitely need the equatorial to do astrophoto
and altaz mount alone cant do the job..
and telephoto is needed or not depends on your astrophoto field..
if you want to take galaxies, wide angle astrophoto then no need telescope..
as i told here before..normal lens, 200mm-400mm telephoto lens can do this job.
But a 200mm lens with f2.8 will cost u as expensive as telescope.
and i think this telephoto lens actually do better job than normal telescope.
But if you think to shoot mars, moon etc than a telescope with longer focal length
is needed.because u will need 700mm above focal length(as long as u can afford)
to take nice mars pics and no telephoto lens can cover this focal length.(except some
order made telephoto lens that will cost u a double storey house in klang valley area)
correct me if I'm wrong Choostar

deepyu, you've brought up the classic dilemma for any hobbiest in any field. What equipment to start off with? No single instrument can do everything you would like to indulge in.
My opinion is a motor driven equatorial mount (reasonably accurate, of course) is the starter kit if anyone wants to do astrophotgraphy with an existing camera (digital or analog, doesn't matter).
For those who don't have a camera, then they will need a telescope with motor drive of some sort and at least a webcam to do imaging on a tight budget.
After that, the sky is the limit as far as equipment is concerned. Each design has its pros and cons, and the choice will depend on which aspect of astrophotgraphy you want to excel in.
When you meet up with the members of the APGM you'll be dazzled by the array of equipment they have.............and enjoy yourself arguing over the selection.

Thank you, deepyu.
I'm pretty agreed with deepyu in the aspect of PHOTOGRAPHY in astronomy. A fast focal ratio and medium telephoto lens is indeed an excellent companion in celestial shooting. As the weather concern, we somehow need to race with time, therefore, it's hardly for us to do many long exposures within a night. When you try to get a good telescope with large aperture, it's good to have its light gathering power. When comes to the exposure wise, we'll need to apply an extra lens called focal reducer to fasten the f in order to shorten the exposure. A 200mm f/2.8 lens (easily over 2k) is very portable and convenient for photographer but not for observing. So, when one highlights on visual observation, a telescope is no doubt more practical. However, a telescope (no matter of its optical system) is applicable to astrophoto, if mounted with a motorized system.

There are some telescopes are specifically builted for astrophoto, 150mm (aperture) with f/2.4.... WOW! Again, we'll sweat over the price..

You'll see it's a different perspective so not necessary to have arguement.

For a beginner, I should say that starting with the existing instrument is a wise option. The basic knowledge of astronomy (ie. celestial motion) is the must.

As for GOTO telescope, it's good either. But I don't see it's an absolute or excellent equipment in astrophoto. What I try to highlight is the technique of tracking does depend on the observer/user not the telescope or GOTO system itself. It does a good job when you key in the object number and let it slews to the designated objects. We understand that most of us enjoy the convenience of automated gadget (and sometime I also prefer to get one to search for Sombrero galaxy) rather than sweating by our hard effort - but it's worthy, you will be satisfied!

In APGM, we try to make the awareness that your existing photographic equipment might surprice you by few steps to snap celestial... in case of your fully understanding of own setup.

Nice to meeting and chatting with you guys here. Have a nice day.

Altaz mount is capable of doing astrophotography as long as your CCD support Drizzle technology, such as Meade Deep Sky Imager Pro. Most of the GOTO telescopes can be mounted in equatorial mode and altaz mode and the quality of the coating of GOTO telescopes are very good and don't need to doubt about it. ( I meant Meade, Celestron and Orion Telescopes ). What I found the best telescope in budget that has short f/ is the LXD75. It just costs RM7900. In the other hand, the telescopes that offered by Meade which are capable of adding focal reducer are the money killers, RCX400 and LX200. They cost merely TEN THOUSANDS!

In this thread, we are discussing about high quality products, so far, this field is always expensive.

What I will buy next to the telescope is the DSLR , therefore, I can take galaxies down but the amount of the money that I spend is too much, my father will be sucked into a zombie . Oops, I will buy myself a notebook too in order to run the CCD camera on the telescope. Maybe I won't get these include the CCD, just go for observing and wait until I am capable of buying a DSLR to take all the photos down.

The atmosphere in Malaysia is quite bad. Therefore, Malaysia is not suitable for deep sky observing and long exposure photos of the celestial objects. I agree with you all that the 200-400mm F/2.8 is very good in taking the wide field. So, is the mount of ETX105AT able to take out and put a DSLR on it?

I am an idiot, I thought the 'register' link on the APGM is to register as a APGM account. It is to register Multiply account. I am planning on setup a Malaysia Astronomy Website, anyone interested to give me a hand?

p/s: This is my longest post since I joined LYN

I'm struck speechless, Mr.LKM!

lol, it is quite hard for me to type so much in a short time because of my suck language.

Choostar, do u think I can catch some nice astropics with my new tiny Casio EX Z750? As u can see from my posts here, I've a long way to go.............my current goal is to capture a respectable shot of the moon with this digicam. Do u think it is possible? Or am I wasting my time?


Well, u expressed yourself very well there. Obviously you've been doing plenty of research on the latest telescope equipment......