76mm aperture and 300mm focal length. Good enough?

GossCTP said:

There is an astrophotography forum on this site. They could help you there. (Its near the bottom in the forum list)

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PiotrMaslanka2006 said:

I know that this is a photography forum and not astronomy - but in my situation, I would buy a telescope for astrophotography. Please also forgive my lack of knowledge on this topic, as I am only a beginner at this.

I am very interested in buying a telescope, to take deep space pictures. I’ve researched that a good focal length for Orion Nebula (The nebula I’m most interested in) is 500mm, and a 76mm aperture. I found a 300mm focal length and 76mm aperture refractor online costing less than £100 - and that’s the Celestron Firstscope. I believe that with resizing and image stacking, my Orion Nebula goal can be reached with this budget telescope. Am I right?

I’m sorry if this is a little off-topic with photography, I thought that this forum is the best place to get a good answer.

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FrancoD said:

have you done a Google search to see if you could find photos of the Orion Nebula taken with that scope ?

I did a quick search and could not find any.

Not surprising given that it is pretty much a toy designed to get kids into sky viewing.

You will find that if you get one the first thing people will suggest is better eyepieces and a scope finder. By the time you do that you could have spent the money on a better scope to start with.

Anyway, I don't see how you could capture a nebula with a telescope of that size that has no auto traking .

BTW, yes I have seen photos of that nebula taken with a 300mm f4 BUT not that 300mm f4 and using some sort of photo traker, like these

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john Clinch said:

1. john Clinch wrote:

PiotrMaslanka2006 said:

I know that this is a photography forum and not astronomy - but in my situation, I would buy a telescope for astrophotography. Please also forgive my lack of knowledge on this topic, as I am only a beginner at this.

I am very interested in buying a telescope, to take deep space pictures. I’ve researched that a good focal length for Orion Nebula (The nebula I’m most interested in) is 500mm, and a 76mm aperture. I found a 300mm focal length and 76mm aperture refractor online costing less than £100 - and that’s the Celestron Firstscope. I believe that with resizing and image stacking, my Orion Nebula goal can be reached with this budget telescope. Am I right?

I’m sorry if this is a little off-topic with photography, I thought that this forum is the best place to get a good answer.

Click to expand...

My hunch is that you will be disappointed. The scope is f4 (300/76). But my hunch is that it will not produce a very large image on your sensor. I mean that the edges of the image will vignetted and blurred. Its not designed as a camera lens its designed to produce a magnified image but only over a small area. It is also unlikely to photographically f4. I think a use manual focus lens would be a better.

135mm f2.8 manual lenses are cheap and widely available

In the UK I'm seeing in canon FD 200m f2.8 for £99 300mm f4 for £200

But my hunch is start 50mm f1.8 or 135mm f2.8 really cheap and work from there

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PiotrMaslanka2006 said:

PiotrMaslanka2006 said:

1. john Clinch wrote:

PiotrMaslanka2006 said:

I know that this is a photography forum and not astronomy - but in my situation, I would buy a telescope for astrophotography. Please also forgive my lack of knowledge on this topic, as I am only a beginner at this.

I am very interested in buying a telescope, to take deep space pictures. I’ve researched that a good focal length for Orion Nebula (The nebula I’m most interested in) is 500mm, and a 76mm aperture. I found a 300mm focal length and 76mm aperture refractor online costing less than £100 - and that’s the Celestron Firstscope. I believe that with resizing and image stacking, my Orion Nebula goal can be reached with this budget telescope. Am I right?

I’m sorry if this is a little off-topic with photography, I thought that this forum is the best place to get a good answer.

Click to expand...

My hunch is that you will be disappointed. The scope is f4 (300/76). But my hunch is that it will not produce a very large image on your sensor. I mean that the edges of the image will vignetted and blurred. Its not designed as a camera lens its designed to produce a magnified image but only over a small area. It is also unlikely to photographically f4. I think a use manual focus lens would be a better.

135mm f2.8 manual lenses are cheap and widely available

In the UK I'm seeing in canon FD 200m f2.8 for £99 300mm f4 for £200

But my hunch is start 50mm f1.8 or 135mm f2.8 really cheap and work from there

Click to expand...

Could 135mm be enough to capture Orion?

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FrancoD said:

I think that you need to focus more on details rather than just thinking along the lines of a 300mm or a 135mm.

You can get a really cheap and nasty version of either as you can get a super sharp one and all sorts in between.

So when you see a great photo taken with, say a 300mm f/4, you need to keep in mind that was taken with a particular 300mm f/4 and not just anything that has those numbers on it.

As already mentioned, you will also need a star traker of some sort and a solid tripod to mount it.

So read VERY carefuly all of the details of ALL of the gear used to get the shot.

Take the example posted above. 135mm traked



(note : stack from 44 x 30 sec exposures)

lens Samyang 135mm f2 $550 USD (if you are in the US...)

star tracker AZ-GTi in EQ $400

camera ASI294MC camera $1000 plus

no tripod mentioned but add $200 plus for that...

now, this is a cheap 135mm lens



$60 on Ebay but you can find them for $15 or so in some SH shops.

good luck with that ...

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john Clinch said:

FrancoD said:

I think that you need to focus more on details rather than just thinking along the lines of a 300mm or a 135mm.

You can get a really cheap and nasty version of either as you can get a super sharp one and all sorts in between.

So when you see a great photo taken with, say a 300mm f/4, you need to keep in mind that was taken with a particular 300mm f/4 and not just anything that has those numbers on it.

As already mentioned, you will also need a star traker of some sort and a solid tripod to mount it.

So read VERY carefuly all of the details of ALL of the gear used to get the shot.

Take the example posted above. 135mm traked



(note : stack from 44 x 30 sec exposures)

lens Samyang 135mm f2 $550 USD (if you are in the US...)

star tracker AZ-GTi in EQ $400

camera ASI294MC camera $1000 plus

no tripod mentioned but add $200 plus for that...

now, this is a cheap 135mm lens



$60 on Ebay but you can find them for $15 or so in some SH shops.

good luck with that ...

Click to expand...

Firstly I did note that the 135mm shot was tracked. I posted it to illustrate field of view

Whilst everything you said is all true you could make positive suggestions

As you have demonstrated it's really way to put people off. This happened to me when starting out. As the 50mm shot does the Orion nebula can be photographed on a budget.

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PiotrMaslanka2006 said:

I know that this is a photography forum and not astronomy - but in my situation, I would buy a telescope for astrophotography. Please also forgive my lack of knowledge on this topic, as I am only a beginner at this.

I am very interested in buying a telescope, to take deep space pictures. I’ve researched that a good focal length for Orion Nebula (The nebula I’m most interested in) is 500mm, and a 76mm aperture. I found a 300mm focal length and 76mm aperture refractor online costing less than £100 - and that’s the Celestron Firstscope. I believe that with resizing and image stacking, my Orion Nebula goal can be reached with this budget telescope. Am I right?

I’m sorry if this is a little off-topic with photography, I thought that this forum is the best place to get a good answer.

Click to expand...