Having messed around with Visual Astronomy, and then trying hacking together an astro-photography solution with my Nikon D4S, and basically getting nowhere. I took the plunge recently and purchased a smart telescope, specifically a Vaonis Vespera 2. So why did I bite the bullet and why was I so wrong at the start.
The main reason for the switch was my naivete and total lack of knowledge at the start. I had no cash and lots of optimism, and more importantly was an optimist with zero knowledge. I initially planned to start in a small way and expand the kit when I grew more knowledgeable, to be honest I got stopped in my tracks.
I also thought if I bought an equatorial mount and made sure I got something that did not come with an iphone holder, I was starting off on a sound footing. Again I was so wrong.
Problem Number 1.
My eyesight is crap. in fact it is so bad that if I could not correct it with glasses or contact lenses, without wearing them, I would be legally blind. When I tried visual astronomy with the sky watcher I could not see a thing. The only thing I saw once was Jupiter with it’s four main moons. And that was it. I could never see anything with a barlow or any lense other than a wide angle.
Problem Number 2.
I tried to automate tracking on my EQ-3 equatorial mount. The mount and the kit were so shoddy, I had to redrill the screws to fit.
Problem Number 3.
Linked to my poor eye sight I found it impossible to collimate the scope and polar align accurately. My garden also faces due north and 40 foot trees out the back did not help either with seeing Polaris.
In the end I realized that I was more interested in the seeing and image creation than the kit. I tried astrophotography with my Nikon D4S. It worked sort of. It was big and heavy and I could not use it with the scope, so used it with it’s 24-70mm f2.8 lens. I enjoyed it more than visual but felt I was shooting blind and really wanted to focus on Deep Sky Objects, and pointing in the general direction and praying was not for me.
In the end I chose to go the Smart telescope Route to enable me to focus on capturing an image and then creating something of beauty out of it. There will be a massive learning curve, and it will be a long journey, but I feel much happier and confident, using a robotic scope like the Vespera to capture the image, and then using my skill to create something out of what it has captured.
The image below is of M13, the Hercules Cluster, straight out of the Vespera with Bortle 6+ skies and a moon at 71% and waking. It is about 50 minutes of capture time and is a jpeg straight out of the scope. The only amendment has been to make it smaller to embed on this page.
