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Camera rotators are today primarily used to frame the target when taking Astrophotos. With the newest high-resolution camera rotators, it is now possible to take perfectly tracked Astrophotos with an Alt-Az type telescope mount. Why bother doing that? Well, it means faster setup with no polar alignment and undisturbed imaging from east to west, with no meridian flip to worry about. Read on and learn how it’s done… Let’s start with a fast summary of how it works: Step-by-step procedure for an imaging session with an Alt-Az mount with a camera rotator Set up the mount and telescope. No levelling of the tripod is needed. Install and connect the imaging gear as usual: Main camera, filter wheel, […]

“If you are able to observe all 110 objects during one single night – from dusk to dawn – you have completed a Messier Marathon.” This is the main definition of a Messier Marathon. There can be different versions of a Messier Marathon: The old style is completely analogue Messier Marathon: Using just a telescope, eyepiece and printed sky maps. A visual Messier Marathon using setting circles and perhaps goto to centre the objects An Electronic Assisted Astronomy (EAA)  Messier Marathon where the objects are observed with a camera I know there are opinions about what is the right way to […]

EAA (Electronic Assisted Astronomy) is Astrophotography kept simple – Alt-Az mounts are tracking mounts kept simple – A perfect match   I define EAA as taking short exposure astrophotos and displaying them live. Typically the setup is simple with a One Shot Colour Camera on a telescope carried by a tracking mount. Stacking on the fly of more short exposures is often used. This will make the image improve over time as more frames are added to the stack. When the image is as wished, it is time to move on to observe another target. It is Live –  It is simple. It is a great way to “Observe” faint objects and show them to the general audience when doing outreach. The mounting for EAA […]

Keep warm indoors, and sleep all night – the automated system will collect light all night. Automating your astro-imaging is getting easier and easier all the time. New hardware and software solutions become available for the dedicated amateur astronomer. In this post, I will tell how I have used the software NINA – Nighttime Imaging ‘N’ Astronomy to automate my imaging setup. With the automated setup, I can start up all the equipment in 5 minutes. Then I select and start a premade session for the night. That’s it. I went back inside waiting for the subs to show up. Here is what the session script does: Slew telescope to target Recenter and rotates FOV to requested position based on plate solve. Perform autofocus Calibrates and starts the autoguider […]

Alt-Az mount Astrophotography – easier than ever It’s getting easier and easier to use Alt-Az mounts for Astrophotography (AP). You don’t have to bother with levelling and polar alignment, so you can set it up very fast and easily. With the many new computer devices, it is also possible to control the system remotely. Most Alt-Az mounts can be used for short exposure AP as they are. When you want to take longer exposures you need a field de-rotator. In this article, I will explain how you can use the ASIAIR Pro computer unit to automate the imaging process. Most things are general for any […]

In the autumn of 2020, I noticed quite a few great astrophotos on Instagram from @azastroguy. All the images were taken with a Panther telescope mount in Alt-Az mode. The guy behind these great images is Mark Johnston of Scottsdale, Arizona. I asked Mark if he could tell me a little about his images. Can an Alt-Az Mount produce good astrophotos? Yes! I have been an active amateur astronomer for decades but only began my first astrophotography in June 2020, so keep in mind these photos were taken by a relative beginner. 100% of my photos are taken with the TTS-160 Alt-Az mount. First of all, I’d like to say the mount is awesome as a visual mount. Portable, rugged, […]

Comet NEOWISE is making a great show right now. It passed closest to the sun on July 3rd and is now slowly moving away from the sun. This means we have to observe the comet very low in the sky. This is absolutely normal for comets but it put some demands on us observers. 1. Find an observation spot with a free horizon in the comet’s direction Find the comet position for the planned observation time and find the Azimuth direction.  TheSkylive.com is fine for this kind of planning. Using the Azimuth direction look at Google Maps and find an observation spot where you have a free view in that direction. Google Streetview can help estimate the local horizon. 2. Bring your mount and […]

PHD2 is a fantastic tool for guiding our telescope mounts. Most of the basic features and settings were created with a German Equatorial Mount in mind. Using it with an Alt-AZ mount is just as precise, as long as you have the right settings. In this post, I will explain how to set up PHD2 when using an alt-az mount with a special focus on the Panther mount, but the general aspects will be the same for all Alt-Az mounts. Two simple terms you need to know PHD2 was created with Equatorial mounts in mind. Therefore PHD2 uses the terms Right Ascension axis and Declination axis. When guiding an Alt-Az […]

In this post, I will introduce a technique to test your telescope/camera system independent of the telescope mount and at the same time get information about your mount  – if you have any questions or comments send me an email.   What you can learn from this post The sky area around the celestial pole rotates very slowly How untracked pictures of this region show the true optical performance of your telescope. Find the guide tolerances needed to get pinpoint stars with your setup How to analyse your star images/profiles using PixInsight Relevant for all kinds of AP mounts (Alt/Az, […]

This is a video recording of a talk about the Modern Alt-Az mount held at The Practical Astronomy Show in March 2019. Actually, the recording was made a few weeks later when I repeated the talk at The Astronomical Society of Copenhagen. Unfortunately, the video quality is not perfect but I hope it can be useful anyway. The video is rather long so here is the timing if you want to jump to certain sections: Introduction My Journey into amateur astronomy (01:24) Comparison of Polar aligned and Alt-Az Mounts (05:05) Summing up the Comparison (19:12) Alt-Az short exposure Astrophotography (20:39) Alt-Az long exposure Astrophotography (30:41) Summing up (38:30). […]

The trip into Alt-Az astrophotography continues – if you have any questions or comments, write them at the bottom of the page or send me an email. In the earlier post “Astrophotography with Alt-Az telescope mounts”, the possibilities for taking astrophotos with Alt-Az mounts were introduced. There are two basic approaches. 1. Take multiple short exposures to eliminate the effects of field rotation (read more) 2. Use a rotator device to rotate the camera and achieve precise equatorial tracking If you wonder why we want to image with an Alt-Az mount see this post “The modern Alt-Az telescope mount – Easy, fast and precise” The first principle has already been described in an earlier […]

You may have learned that for taking good astrophotos, you need a polar aligned mount preferably a German equatorial mount. But with new high-quality Alt-Az mounts, this is no longer true. New technologies introduced in Alt-Az mounts mean they can deliver precise equatorial tracking while maintaining the basic advantages of the Alt-Az mount (read more about these advantages and a comparison to Polar aligned mount here). Tracking needed for precise astrophotography One of the first challenges when taking astrophotos is to achieve good tracking. Without good tracking of the object imaged, the rest […]

This is the first article in a small series that will focus on the use and possibilities of Altitude-Azimuth (Alt-Az) telescope mounts. First, the basic overview will be created and in the coming articles, more details on the actual use and possibilities of the modern Alt-Az mount will be covered. The historic view The very first telescope mounts made were Alt-Az mounts. Logically, it is the easiest way to mount a telescope to get a compact and stable base. For astronomical telescopes, the need for tracking the objects across the sky led to the invention of the Polar-aligned Parallactic Mount. In the times of no computer control, the fixed speed drive needed for the polar aligned mount was easy […]