Tag: Askar FMA180 f4.5

Chasing darkness in Switzerland 2021 – Flims Laax

I haven’t been able to photograph the stars for a very long time. I live in a valley where many rivers flow, which brings a lot of moisture into the air. This moisture condenses, which forms either fog or clouds. I was sick of this weather and decided to climb above the clouds and finally take some pictures. Like last year I chose Berghaus Nagens in Flims/Laax ski resort and combine this trip with a skiing vacation. So, how was it? Well, I have bad luck this year. I got only a single cloudless night out of five. Moreover, it was the last one. So, I was not able to photograph the whole night and around midnight I had to pack the gear.

There is a time wrap made by GoPro Hero 8 Black. A view to the south direction. Orion is rising, snowcats are preparing the slopes and the only light pollution comes from city Milan, which is 100 km away.

The primary target was a very difficult one – IC 2118 Witch Head Nebula. This reflection nebula is illuminated by the supergiant star Rigel (right leg of the Orion constellation). The dark skies are the essence and the Askar mini telescope did the job. However, I was surprised how terrible was the chromatic aberration. This can be partially corrected in postprocessing, but not fully. I think I will have to find a better scope.

LensAskar FMA180 F4.5
CameraCanon EOS 6Da
MountiOptron Skyguider Pro
Exposure35x180s, ISO 1600
Date2021-12-30

Before the Orion constellation rose up, I captured the M45 Pleiades. It’s an integration of 63 frames each 2 minutes long. Here, the dark skies reveal some dark nebulae in the visual surroundings of the star cluster. Again, I was quite disappointed by the chromatic aberration of the Askar telescope.

LensAskar FMA180 F4.5
CameraCanon EOS 6Da
MountiOptron Skyguider Pro
Exposure62x120s, ISO 1600
Date2021-12-30

Chasing darkness in Greece on Crete

This year we made our traditional summer vacation in Greece a bit earlier. The main reason was the cheap plane tickets to Crete. The destination was given, what remained was to specify the precise location. My friends recommended the southeast coast, so I started to search and found a house with a suitable terrace in the abandoned village Chametoulo. According to the light pollution map, the location should be perfect. We arrived at night, parked in front of the village, and moved all our stuff to the house through very narrow, steep streets. The first thing, that struck my eyes, was the presence of several LED powerful street lamps. WHY? Why there are street lamps in the empty village? Who pays for the electricity? Anyway, the terrace was partially covered and protected from the street lamps. On the other hand, it was very dark anywhere you look. I measured the SQM and directly at the zenith reached 21.55, which is a very good value. I started to get excited, but during our stay, my excitement was turned into frustration. It was very windy all the time. Some days it was less windy, but still, the conditions were far from being optimal. Fortunately, I took two rigs with me. The classical 150/600 mm Newtonian, sitting on RST 135 mount. The second one I tried in the winter – the pocket astrophotography rig. Askar F4.5 180 mm refractor, coupled with Canon 6D astro-modified and all this on extremely portable iOptron SkyGuider Pro. The Newtonian was totally unusable in the wind, but tiny Askar had no problems at all and I took roughly 1300 photos with Canon 6D camera.

Here is village Chametoulo during the day:

And here is the village Chametoulo during the night:

Here is the double rig. I attached a 20 l canister to the tripod holding the RST 135 and 150/600 Newtonian to minimize the vibration due to the wind, but unfortunately, it didn’t help.

In the end, I managed to capture a couple of galaxies: M101 Pinwheel, M31 Andromeda, but otherwise, I gave up with 150/600 mm Newtonian. The smaller rig based on iOptron SkyGuider Pro performed much better. My primary target was Rho Ophiuchi @180 mm focal length. Then I captured the most interesting nebulae in constellations Serpens and Sagittarius – Lagoon, Trifid, Eagle, and Omega nebulae. Then I moved to the constellation Cygnus and captured it with many different focal lengths. Finally, I made a stop at the constellation Cassiopeia to compose the Heart, Soul nebulae with the Double Cluster NGC 869 and 884.

The Milky Way was not possible to photograph directly from the house, due to the street lamps in the village. I had to take a car and drive a bit to get to the South Coast Viewpoint:

Technical details:

LensSamyang 24 mm f1.4 @ f2.8
CameraCanon EOS 6Da
MountiOptron Skyguider Pro
Exposure16x15s, ISO 1600
Date2021-07-14


IC1805 Heart Nebula and IC1848 Soul Nebula

One of the last deep space objects I captured on Crete are two visually large nebulae. And these are IC1805 Heart Nebula and IC 1848 Soul Nebula. Both are very dim objects, therefore I set the shutter speed of the Canon EOS 6Da camera to 3 minutes and let it capture the light shooting from the constellation Perseus the whole night long. Even NGC 884 869 Double Cluster fit in the field of view.

Technical details:

LensAskar FMA180 F4.5
CameraCanon EOS 6Da
MountiOptron Skyguider Pro
Exposure50x180s, ISO 1600
Date2021-07-12

Cygnus

I went to Crete without a detailed plan on which deep space objects to capture. The primary target was Rho Ophiuchi, which I captured really well. Then I started to think about the next objects. Obviously, if you are in a dark place, you can point your camera nearly anywhere. However, there are some regions full of stars and deep space objects. For example constellation Cygnus, which is sometimes called the Northern Cross. It is located visually on the plane of the Milky Way galactic disk, therefore there are many deep space objects.

Let’s have a look at a wide-field picture captured by a 24 mm lens attached to Canon EOS 6Da:

Let’s zoom a bit by changing the lens to a 50 mm focal length. Here the constellation is perfectly centered:

Let’s zoom further to the central star Sadr by change of the lens to 180 mm focal length:

Let’s keep the focal length 180 mm and let’s have a look at the left star Deneb and very famous North America nebula:

Again, let’s keep the focal length 180 mm and change to perspective to the bottom (eastern) star Aljanah, where the beautiful supernova remnant the Veil nebula is located:

In total, the camera collected 15.5 hours of light and I am happy with the result.


IC1396 Elephant’s Trunk nebula

Elephant’s Trunk nebula is an emission nebula located in constellation Cepheus. I tried to capture this magnificent nebula in 2017 and in 2018, but it never fit in the field of view of my camera-telescope assembly. This time I used a focal length of only 180 mm, combined with a large full-frame sensor. Well, and finally it fits. Moreover, even the B174 dark nebula at the bottom left corner found the spot on the sensor. The picture was taken under a very dark Cretan sky.

Technical details:

LensAskar FMA180 F4.5
CameraCanon EOS 6Da
MountiOptron Skyguider Pro
Exposure159x120s, ISO 1600
Date2021-07-08

Rho Ophiuchi region

Rho Ophiuchi is in my opinion the most beautiful assembly of the nebulae in the universe. Blue, red, and orange colors are combined to create this magnificent cloud complex. The dominant yellow star Antares (Alpha Scorpii) is a red supergiant, one of the largest visible stars. The star Alniyat (Sigma Scorpii) is surrounded by ionized hydrogen gas. Between these two stars is the M4 globular cluster, which I captured on Fuerteventura. The blue nebula is Rho Ophiuchi, also captured by me earlier.

In order to capture the whole beauty, one has to use a relatively short focal length (I used 180 mm), combined with a large sensor area (I used full frame 36×24 mm), and take the shots at a very dark location. This was my primary target during our trip to Crete 2021 and I am very happy that I finally got it framed. However, there is another beautiful nebula called Blue Horsehead in the visual vicinity and if I would turn the camera 90°, I would manage to capture it. So, there is a target for my next expedition.

Technical details:

LensAskar FMA180 F4.5
CameraCanon EOS 6Da
MountiOptron Skyguider Pro
Exposure38x120s, ISO 1600
Date2021-07-07

M8 Lagoon nebula M20 Trifid nebula

Constellation Sagittarius is full of deep space objects. I think we all agree that the most beautiful one is the Lagoon nebula, accompanied by the Trifid nebula. I captured these nebulae already, but with a much longer focal length. This time I used a significantly shorter telescope – only 180 mm to reveal the other deep space objects. The bright star at the bottom left is the star Kaus Bolearis, where the archer has his head. This star is surrounded by the globular clusters: M22 Great Sagittarius cluster on the left and M28 on the top.

Technical details:

LensAskar FMA180 F4.5
CameraCanon EOS 6Da
MountiOptron Skyguider Pro
Exposure50x60s, ISO 1600
Date2021-07-03

iOptron SkyGuider Pro, Askar FMA180 f4.5 review

I made a big step towards ultra-portable astrophotography. On Kythira I first time placed my workhorse Canon EOS 6Da on mini mount Baader Nanotracker and made quite stunning pictures of the Milky Way. I was so excited and started to think about more serious “pocket-size” astrophotography. The requirements were the following: no external batteries, telescope, and camera should have max. 1.5 kg weight, focal length around 200 mm. The camera it’s simple, I simply keep using my modified Canon 6D.

The telescope is quite trickier, but I found Askar FMA, which has a 220 mm focal length, which is shortened by included a full-frame reducer to 180 mm. Aperture 40 mm yields for this focal length to speed F 4.5. The scope weighs only 400 g (700 g with the rings and EOS adapter). There is an M48 thread at the front of the telescope, which is very useful to attach the 2” mounted filters, particularly if you live in a light-polluted area.

There are several travel mounts on the market. Probably the most famous is Skywatcher Star Adventurer. I was about to pull the trigger on this mount, but I found another one, which will fulfill my requirements even better – iOptron SkyGuider Pro. iOptron has the same payload (5 kg with counterweight, 1.5 kg without) and has many interesting features:

  • Integrated illuminated polar scope
  • The torque from the motor to the worm gear is transmitted by a belt (this should minimize the backlash),
  • Integrated battery, which can be changed by USB cable
  • ST-4 socket for autoguiding

iOptron is slightly lighter than Skywatcher, so the decision was made. And how does it perform? I must say: VERY WELL! I got a chance to use it at home, so I screwed the IDAS NB1 filter in front of the Askar and captured the center region of the Orion and California nebula. The mount is tracking very accurately even without any counterweight and the number of bad photos caused by poor tracking was zero.

The telescope surprised me very positively as well. The connection to the camera is done by T-thread (M42), so I expected significant vignetting on the full-frame sensor, because the diameter of the thread is 42 mm, whereas the diagonal of the sensor is 43 mm. Surprisingly, it vignettes very little, and even flat frames are not necessary. The darker corners can be corrected by dynamic background extraction in PixInsight. The stars are a little bit oval at the bottom corners, but we are here looking at a full-frame sensor. In the end, I am very happy with the price/weight/performance ratio of Askar.

Let’s have a look at how heavy is the whole rig:

Tripod2.3 kg
iOptron SkyGuider1.5 kg
Canon EOS 6D0.8 kg
Askar0.7 kg
Total5.3 kg

This can fit into any backpack.

Here are the pictures:

Technical details:

LensAskar FMA180 F4.5
CameraCanon EOS 6Da
MountiOptron Skyguider Pro
Exposure60x60s, ISO 1600
Date2021-02-18

Technical details:

LensAskar FMA180 F4.5
CameraCanon EOS 6Da
MountiOptron Skyguider Pro
Exposure44x120s, ISO 1600
Date2021-02-18