A little about us...
About us…
RS Astro was started in January 2020 when we (Rick & Sara) decided to try our hand at astrophotography for the first time.
Rick woke me up at 3am one morning to tell me he had impulsively bought a telescope on Amazon because it was on offer so armed with just an Astromaster 130 telescope and a DSLR our journey began and we never looked back….
Come and join us on a wild adventure of learning curves, ups and downs, awful first attempt photos to some of the most amazing photos we are now capturing and processing.
Our aim is to help anyone with an interest in astrophotography whether they are old professionals or first timers that haven’t got a clue where to start and maybe even entice a few people that have thought about it but never gone any further.
We also hope to be able to teach kids about our solar system and some of the beautiful wonders that are in our skies and beyond.
Let's take a little look at our first set up
AstroMaster 130EQ
The Celestron AstroMaster 130EQ is a great starter scope – especially considering the price. It should certainly be enough to get you started. There are a range of accessories available with this reflector and the build quality is adequate. Optional extras include a motor-drive and additional eyepieces.
Celestron 93514
The Celestron 93514 Motor Drive converts a manual German Equatorial into a basic tracking mount. This unit allows the mount to track at the approximate sidereal speed by adjusting the RA (Right ascension) of the mount over time.
Sidereal Tracking is the apparent speed at which the stars appear to move through the sky.
Canon EOS 4000D
This great camera is the perfect bridge (camera pun not intended) between compact and DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras.
I got this camera for Sara as she said she wanted to get into photography. I wasn’t sure whether she’d stick with it or not, so didn’t want to go overboard. The 4000D has some raving reviews on Amazon and it certainly holds it’s own. Sporting many of the features of a much higher end camera.
Although this camera was by no means designed for Astrophotography and remains unmodified, we attached it to the AstroMaster and had great fun with in/back focus issues. We also learned the importance of Polar Alignment and how it can really make or break an image (by break, I mean totally destroy).
This set up helped us get our very first moon pictures, they weren’t great but for a first attempt at something we knew nothing about, they’re not bad!
