Good, clear concise video! An SCT with an f/6.3 reducer-corrector will produce a 2 deg. field with a 31mm Nagler or like eyepiece with an 82 degree apparent field of view. 2 degrees is 4 moon diameters, which is pretty good. But it won't match the little refractor for potential field size. Resolution (both scopes having good optics) is directly proportional to the diameter of the working optic. So the 3 inch has half the resolution of the 6 inch scope so when looking at the moon at high powers, details as small as 1 mile across will be visible with the 3 inch scope and about 0.5 miles across in the 6.
I’ve had a TeleVue Pronto, which has the same optics as the Ranger, for over 30 years. Other scopes have come and gone, but the Pronto stays. Hard to beat a small quality refractor for the combination of convenience and image quality.
Thanks for stopping by and for the comments! I always enjoy seeing your videos. It is really amazing what you are able to capture with that Nikon camera by itself.
My first telescope was from 5 years ago. A 60mm refractor. I still use it now. It was 40 usd. In our country, that's like, 2,000. I'm gonna buy a decent telescope when i graduate
Keep the refractor when you get your new scope if you can though. Small refractors always have a place. They allow you see much wider fields of view than you can in an SCT for example.
I am like a little kid at Christmas right now. I ordered an Orion 6" NR, and have been waiting on it to ship. I have a really cheap 80mm refractor that was given to me, and I've been practicing imaging. Mostly the moon, but other objects, like the oil platforms off the coast. I'm getting better, so it should be really fun when I get the new scope.
Very nicely done! Normally for most applications save for astrophotos, more aperture means more detail. I used to be a member of The Dark Side, aka hardcore refractor club. Yet at every star party I found myself directing visitors to scopes larger than my 4 incher if they wanted to get a better look Don't get me wrong, still have & use a small refractor a lot. Probably the most. But this is a matter of convenience, not superiority. Remember the old Questar ads promising to outdo 8 inch SCTs? I'm sure they did just that to some poor units cranked out in the 80s & even more so to uncollimated units. But like I said, a telescope is an example of bigger more often than not being better at the eyepiece. Thanks for the upload, I always admired Televue Rangers and Prontos, though the company did take some liberties with the semi-apo descriptive. As you put it, high quality achromats is a bit closer to the truth. Thanks again!
I’ve had lots of refractors and love them for some things. Best view I’ve ever had of the Orion Nebula was with a stellarvue 110ED and binoviewers. That scope broke down into pieces and would fit in a camera backpack with accessories. Took it to Hawaii. But generally aperture always rules. Love refractors for quick looks and travel though. They rule for deep sky photography too.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience Agree, & I would also have to say that I have had better results splitting double stars with refractors. Possibly stray light control or my own collimation error.
Thermals are a problem too with larger scopes. My 8” edge hd SCT I had never did well on Jupiter when I had it, not nearly as good as my current 6”SCT. But Jupiter was at opposition during colder months of the year when I had that scope so thermal issues were always present. The fast cool down of refractors gives them an edge in the winter or in places where temperatures fall rapidly unless you have really good active cooling. That 8” edge gave me the best views of Saturn I have ever seen though.
Just found your channel and like the no nonsense way that it is presented. I have a American scientific AR 102 and have been thinking of the Celestron C6 for a while now just for a different view. Thanks for Posting and did subscribe.
Hey Eddgie, thanks for stopping by. I've learned a lot from your posts on Cloudy Nights over the years. What is interesting is that I recorded these with my Canon SL2, and that produces better "real time" video than my ASI224MC, though that ASI224MC produces better stacked images. That makes sense I guess since the computer chip in the Canon is processing the data and cleaning it up some, and the ASI camera is just spitting out the raw data. But when trying to show video views that come closer to what it looks like in the eyepiece, the Canon does a better job in that regard.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience That is an interesting thought. The detail on the capture was really good and I was surprised by how much could be seen but my own captures were of course done with planetary cameras so I never considered how a modern camera like the SL2 might have an advantage with actual real time exposure. Very nice. And thank you for the kind words. Really impressive real time view capture though. I enjoyed seeing that!
I have 3 telescopes at home: a Celestron Travel Scope 70 (My favorite, a 70mm with 400mm FL), a Meade Infinity 50 ( 50mm, 600mm FL), and an antique Jason Explorer 400 (A 60mm with 800mm FL). Looking into possibly getting a 6 or 8 inch scope. The only thing I hate about SCT's are they are so dadgum expensive! Especially if you opt for a motorized mount. However, this definitely breaks down what details I can see on Jupiter and the moon. I'd definitely like to see a video on how different bright deep-sky objects like M31 and M42 may look to the eye between these two scopes with comparable magnification. Where I'm at, the 70mm scope just barely shows the Sombrero Galaxy as a tiny, barely discernable smudge in a 20mm eyepiece. Even my 60mm doesn't pick it up with a 40mm eyepiece.
Globular clusters will start looking good with an 8” telescope. Galaxies are still going to be dim smudges unless you are at a really dark site. That is why I have my Unistellar eVscope, which does live image stacking to help see those quickly and easily without much setup time. You can do the same with any telescope and a camera and live stacking software with a little more effort. It is hard to show what deep sky objects look like in the eyepiece on these telescopes since you really have to eyeball it in the image processing. A live video view of a deep sky object isn’t going to look as good as it does to the human eye but if you do several second exposures it will looks better than the human eye. You can maybe get the brightness about the same but then it will be very grainy in the video which of course isn’t accurate to how it looks visually. If you use exposures long enough to remove most of the grain you usually end up showing more detail than you see when watching visually. So it is a hard thing to show well.
All the product literature and reviews are much less impressive than the evidence of your eyes. I had no idea that a doublet refractor would do so poorly against the reflector. Much appreciated for sidestepping buyers remorse.
You are going to need a canon T2 thread adapter and then a T2 1.25” nosepiece to allow you to put the camera in the visual back or a diagonal. I would highly recommend a 2-3x Barlow lens or powermate to help increase the focal length for planetary imaging.
It is hard to show that since the different focal lengths and ratios make it hard to give a good comparison when using a camera. Biggest difference is the refractor gives a much wider field of view and the SCT gathers more light. I’ll need to try and work out a good comparison in that regard.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience a reflector telescope will give a wider field of view because of the bigger mirror. I don't think it would be that difficult to compare if your able to compare the planet's
The SCT has a much narrower field of view than the refractor since the focal length is larger and you are limited by the rear port of the scope. The 6” SCT is 1500mm and that 70mm refractor about 480mm and both have a 1.25” visual back/focuser. So, you can only get up to 1.1-1.2 degrees whereas the refractor will give a few degrees. You can get a larger field of view with a reducer but you end up with severe vignetting. The refractor would give an even wider field of view if it had a 2” focuser. What I meant is that because the focal lengths are so different you have to cobble together various types of barlow lenses or try to image through an eyepiece to try and get a similar magnification or a similar focal length or focal ratio for an apples to apples comparison. But simply showing the large difference if field of view at the native focal length would be useful too. I no longer have either of these telescopes but could do a similar type of refractor/SCT comparison with other telescopes.
It took 9 months to get my Celestron Evolution 6, and I now want to get a ZWO color camera to acquire short exposure bright object images. Do you have any suggestions?
The 224MC is a great starter camera for doing planetary images. If you want to do any kind of deep sky though you probably want to try one that has a larger image sensor since the field of view in a C6 is small with the 224MC and its small chip. If you want to do planetary imaging, obviously you don't need a big sensor, and really the most important thing is that the camera can do a high frame rate, like over 100fps. Some of the ones with big sensors can still do that as long as you only capture a small area. Even with the 224MC you can just capture a 640x480 region to maximize frame rate. Of course the max frame rate you can capture does also depend on your computer as you need to have a USB3 connection and an reasonably quick SSD to max out the frame rate. that is normal on any newer laptop, so usually not an issue, but something to be aware of.
Great...Lot of work there, thanks. I have a Celestron Nexstar Evolution 6" ordered. Also, I'm considering adding a ZWO CMOS camera. I have a Nikon D700 and D610, but figure a ZWO would work easier with astro imaging. Your thoughts please?
I was tracking by hand but would let it settle for a while the track a bit more and let it settle. All the shaky parts get dropped from the image stack. The vibration pads would have helped some but usually I don’t bother using them since I can still get enough good frames during a 90 second capture.
Nice video. I got very nice views on the planets with my Skywatcher Ed80/600 on imaging did perform decent but i am thinking to buy a 6 inch Rc or Cassegrain or Maksutov to improve planetary imaging, with 150mm diameter should perform much better then a 3 inch telescope for planetary imaging. will make a video soon with my results on planets with the Skywatcher Ed80
@@humbertogaburel5815 Hello! For astrophotography i will recommend a short focal length refractor from 360 to 600mm focal length, for planets you will get better results with a bigger aperture and focal length telescope.
Everything appears to be moving towards mirror-less cameras so that would be something to consider though I don’t have a lot of knowledge in that area. Canon has their new 90d out which makes some of their colder cameras that are still great like the 80d or even 70d cheaper. However, if you are just doing astrophotography a dedicated Astro camera like one of the ZWO cameras would be cheaper. Obviously a DSLR serves double duty for vacations and everything else.
Very nice. Just bought them Twilight 1 and have it together with a C5 and have a Celestron Travel 80, not quite a TV haha. What mount do you have that on? Really like the ES mount and slo-mo controls. Checking out the Nexstar mounts and C6. So your videos are nice. Are you going to observe Mercury transit?
Yep I plan to observe the mercury transit. I have a solar filter for the televue and will probably pick one up for the C6. I really like the C5, it is a great portable scope and puts up nice views. The C6 is quite a bit bigger. I have the televue on a manfrotto tripod with the mount head that came with it. It works pretty nice but isn’t too steady over 100X but still useable. Makes for a great portable setup though and works as a spotting scope too. Took it to Yellowstone this past May to watch bears and things.
I've been thinking about getting a telescope that I can hook my dslr to so I can get pics of Saturn and Jupiter. Would you say the celestron c6 is a good choice?
You can get good shots of the planets with a C6 once you have had practice. A bigger scope is always better for increased resolution but of course harder to set up. I use the C8 now but it isn’t a huge step up from the C6. It only produces better images when the seeing is good. It takes some trial and error to figure out the best video settings with your camera to produce the best set of video frames for stacking. It took a year or more before I started getting good results. Especially since there is a learning curve to the processing of the data.
@@sandeepkarmalkar7209 the C6 will do better on planets but the 5” Newtonian will show you a larger field of view making it easier to find things and will do better on larger deep sky objects. Those Celestron 5” Newtonians that allows you to use your phone to find things would probably get a lot of use because it is easy to setup and fast to find things and such. That would make a great companion to maybe an 8” SCT if you bought one of those eventually. Only downside with the 6” SCT is that it is a great single telescope but having a smaller reflector or refractor and then a bigger 8” Newtonian or SCT would eventually be a better combo.
Mostly just to remove the blue fringe you see on bright objects with a refractor that isn’t an apochromate. Objects like the moon, Jupiter, or bright stars will have a blue or purple fringe around them through a refractor telescope that isn’t an Apo. The filter removes that color fringe but because it removes part of the blue/purple color it leaves the image a little more yellow looking. With a higher quality refractor you don’t need or want to use the filter. You don’t even really need the filter in this telescope for general use. Cameras pick up the color fringe more dramatically than your eye does. Especially if your eyes are older and you have less ability to see that wavelength
I use an ASI224MC now. The main advantage is the higher frame rate and getting the raw video without any compression. That all helps you get slightly better images. Not huge differences, but when the seeing is bad you get more useable frames, so those types of cameras are better at producing a good image in poor conditions. It is easier to start with a DSLR though and sometimes I still use it because you don’t have to bring a computer out with you.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience Thats exactly the reason I switched to DSLR... It would be nice to have an all in one dedicated astro cam that streams to your phone and does exposures.
Could I get pictures like yours with a Celestron 127eq and a smartphone? Thanks a million. I'm looking for a telescope and the Celestron seemed like a good deal.
It is hard to produce good planetary images with a smart phone. I haven’t tried but you might be able to with an application that gives you more control over the camera. The default camera apps usually won’t produce great results since you want to process raw data as much as possible and a lot of times the phones compression and processing make it hard to get a good image if you plan to stack frames.
You’re not saying how you took the pics? A-Focal? Was the camera a cropped or full frame? Whether through East her scope, you won’t see that with your eye.. So you have a zoom to it’s cropped.
The Canon SL2 used is a crop sensor camera. Wasn't a focal, but had a barlow lens in front of the camera. I can't remember at this point what I used then. I use a 2.5x televue powermate now. Either way same combo was used on both. I of course had to scale the retractor one up for the images with the same size. You can get better views visually than these images through a 6” or larger scope when the seeing is good. There have been a couple of nights I've had that had spectacular seeing. We can get some great nights down here in Oklahoma during mid-late summer when a big upper level ridge is parked over head. Now there will be a lot of nights where the views if Jupiter are terrible. A lot of this year has been bad but I've had 1-2 nights of pretty good seeing but nothing spectacular yet.
Hey Brother I'm planning to get a telescope to mostly see planets, I'm a newbie ,I know nothing about telescopes,I do enjoy watching Neil Degrasse Tyson "just a side note" I'm planning to get the 10" Dob , I also have in mind the Celestron 8se I do have around $1500 I can even go a little higher ,but like I sad there a too much info and options, aperture, f/4 f/5 f/10 ,plus lenses and eye pieces, please guide me on what to get to have a good definition of Planets jupiter, saturn and nebulas without that fuzziness view i appreciate
So you will eventually end up going through all kinds of different telescopes if you stay in this hobby a long time. The issue is no telescope can do everything well. SCT scopes are comfortable to use and do well at most things but aren’t really great at anything besides portability and ergonomics. However, for me those often end up being the biggest factors. Dobsonian scopes are the best bang for the buck, and a 10” dob will do great at a lot of things. But without a comma corrector or higher end televue type eyepieces they will show comma on the outside of the field of view. Not a huge issue as that may or may not bother you. The big issue is that they are big and harder to move around easily unless you get a lightweight version. I don’t like the ergonomics as much either. Refractors will give you the most consistently great views but are super expensive if you want good quality in something more than a few inches across. I like the combo of a small refractor for wide field views and for East portability (also for taking on vacations for looking at wildlife, etc) plus a larger scope of some type. Both an 8” SCT and a 10” dob can show great views of planets. However, seeing varies a lot so you might get terrible views your first dozen times using it and then suddenly get a still night that produces amazing views. I have yet to get a good early morning view of Jupiter this year for example. But once we get into mid summer I know I probably will. In any event, views of deep sky objects will largely depend on your level of light pollution. Star clusters will look great but nebula and galaxys, besides some bright ones, will be meh from a city but great from a dark site in an 8-10” scope. The 10” dob should beat the 8” SCT in theory, but I would always take the 8” SCT for the more comfortable ergonomics and easier portability. If you can keep the scope by your door and easily move it out then it may not matter as much. Another option is to keep it in the garage if you have one, on a cart or something you can just wheel out when you want to use it. I assure you a scope that is easier to move around and use will get used a lot more in the long run.
Dobs are nice, but you kinda get tired of following whatever by hand. Especially when you start boosting magnification. I've an 8 inch and have seen some real nice views. But trying to follow Jupiter or Saturn at 200x or more is such a pain. But enjoy whichever you choose, it's a wonderful hobby.
I don't understand your comment at 0:56, "this is running right now about f/22, f/21.8, focal length about 1536". The Televue Ranger is 480mm focal length, f/6.8 (written on the tube in the video plus www.company7.com/televue/telescopes/ranger.html). Focal length is fixed by the glass shape and unless you reshape the glass, it's going to stay 480mm. You could change the f/# with an aperture mask but to bring the 480mm to f/21.8 it would mean a mask of 22mm diameter, pretty poor in terms of resolution. Anyway....so I don't get what "running ...about f/22" means.
I’m not sure exactly how that translates to US dollars to be sure but I would be wary of the sky prodigy mount. While it is a good system in terms of the way it tracks and aligns I’ve heard that isn’t a very sturdy mount. Certainly you cant put anything heavier than a C6 on it. The 6SE mount can at least hold a C8 if you later wanted to upgrade. Maybe someone else who has had a sky prodigy can chime in. The C6 is a great scope my only concern is how good that mount is that comes with that system. You can remove the scope and put it on a other mount later so no issue there.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience 12 years ago $1,00 Australian was worth $1.10 US, Now $1,00 AUD will buy about 72c US,, Apart from not being able to travel due to Covid-19 it would be a great time for Americans to travel around our great country Australia lol plus Apart from the State Victoria the Majority of Australia is Covid-19 free ...Stay Safe : )
Both refractors and SCTs product upside down images when used without a diagonal. So if you put the camera into the telescope directly, then everything is upside down. When you put I diagonal in, you flip the image again so it is right side up, but it is reversed left to right.
Also, it depends which way I have the camera in. Sometimes I’ll just flip the camera over so it is the correct orientation but sometimes I don’t depending on where I want the cable to be that sticks out of the camera.
The C6 wins easily ..easily except widefield and even then a focal reducer will bring it to 1.5 degrees easily..some TV owners will want this video pulled down
This does not look like average seeing, but like very good seeing. There would be a more noticeable difference between both scopes if it was just average.
Well, depends where you live. For the northern US day, this would be good. Here in the souther US where the jet stream is far north of us for half the year and we often have ridges of high pressure aloft in place, we can get spoiled with often two or more straight months of good and occasionally excellent seeing. So, average seeing for here in Oklahoma in the summer anyway. Being from Chicago originally, I know that the seeing is crap for much of the year up there, so it where you live makes a huge difference.
My 8” SCT can do superb images when seeing is good. The Newtonian should be a little better but the SCT is super convenient. I got rid of my 10” reflector because I just didn’t use it much due to size.
Certainly it isn't up to the standards of today's refractors in terms of color correction, and you can get a better scope for cheaper now. However, the optics on them are incredibly sharp, and so it is still a great scope if you can get one for a good price.
I don’t really have a good handle on what those normally go for right now. You can definitely get a new 80ED that will outperform the ranger at that price so that is kind of the issue. The ranger of course is nice and compact and built very well.
Love the everyday astronaught music
Good, clear concise video!
An SCT with an f/6.3 reducer-corrector will produce a 2 deg. field with a 31mm Nagler or like eyepiece with an 82 degree apparent field of view. 2 degrees is 4 moon diameters, which is pretty good. But it won't match the little refractor for potential field size. Resolution (both scopes having good optics) is directly proportional to the diameter of the working optic. So the 3 inch has half the resolution of the 6 inch scope so when looking at the moon at high powers, details as small as 1 mile across will be visible with the 3 inch scope and about 0.5 miles across in the 6.
That is how you justify owning at least two telescopes and preferably 3-5 telescopes. 6 or 7 are even better. 😉
I’ve had a TeleVue Pronto, which has the same optics as the Ranger, for over 30 years. Other scopes have come and gone, but the Pronto stays. Hard to beat a small quality refractor for the combination of convenience and image quality.
This was very well put together and informative - thanks so much. Those were some great captures of Jupiter too. :)
Thanks for stopping by and for the comments! I always enjoy seeing your videos. It is really amazing what you are able to capture with that Nikon camera by itself.
Hi Jay!!!!!
I love your videos
Interesting comparison. I expected the SCT to be better- but not by that much!
My first telescope was from 5 years ago. A 60mm refractor. I still use it now. It was 40 usd. In our country, that's like, 2,000. I'm gonna buy a decent telescope when i graduate
Keep the refractor when you get your new scope if you can though. Small refractors always have a place. They allow you see much wider fields of view than you can in an SCT for example.
Build your own!!!
I am like a little kid at Christmas right now. I ordered an Orion 6" NR, and have been waiting on it to ship. I have a really cheap 80mm refractor that was given to me, and I've been practicing imaging. Mostly the moon, but other objects, like the oil platforms off the coast. I'm getting better, so it should be really fun when I get the new scope.
I can see the characteristics of each telescope well.
It is a very clear lunar surface animation.
Huge thanks for showing that with the televue lens you can turn an achromatic telescope into an apochromatic telescope
Thank you for such a beautiful work!
Very nicely done! Normally for most applications save for astrophotos, more aperture means more detail. I used to be a member of The Dark Side, aka hardcore refractor club. Yet at every star party I found myself directing visitors to scopes larger than my 4 incher if they wanted to get a better look
Don't get me wrong, still have & use a small refractor a lot. Probably the most. But this is a matter of convenience, not superiority.
Remember the old Questar ads promising to outdo 8 inch SCTs? I'm sure they did just that to some poor units cranked out in the 80s & even more so to uncollimated units. But like I said, a telescope is an example of bigger more often than not being better at the eyepiece.
Thanks for the upload, I always admired Televue Rangers and Prontos, though the company did take some liberties with the semi-apo descriptive. As you put it, high quality achromats is a bit closer to the truth. Thanks again!
I’ve had lots of refractors and love them for some things. Best view I’ve ever had of the Orion Nebula was with a stellarvue 110ED and binoviewers. That scope broke down into pieces and would fit in a camera backpack with accessories. Took it to Hawaii. But generally aperture always rules. Love refractors for quick looks and travel though. They rule for deep sky photography too.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience Agree, & I would also have to say that I have had better results splitting double stars with refractors. Possibly stray light control or my own collimation error.
Thermals are a problem too with larger scopes. My 8” edge hd SCT I had never did well on Jupiter when I had it, not nearly as good as my current 6”SCT. But Jupiter was at opposition during colder months of the year when I had that scope so thermal issues were always present. The fast cool down of refractors gives them an edge in the winter or in places where temperatures fall rapidly unless you have really good active cooling. That 8” edge gave me the best views of Saturn I have ever seen though.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience Not in the solar system.
Just found your channel and like the no nonsense way that it is presented. I have a American scientific AR 102 and have been thinking of the Celestron C6 for a while now just for a different view. Thanks for Posting and did subscribe.
Really interesting comparison, thank you for sharing
The real time view through the C6 was quite excellent. Nice video.
Hey Eddgie, thanks for stopping by. I've learned a lot from your posts on Cloudy Nights over the years. What is interesting is that I recorded these with my Canon SL2, and that produces better "real time" video than my ASI224MC, though that ASI224MC produces better stacked images. That makes sense I guess since the computer chip in the Canon is processing the data and cleaning it up some, and the ASI camera is just spitting out the raw data. But when trying to show video views that come closer to what it looks like in the eyepiece, the Canon does a better job in that regard.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience That is an interesting thought. The detail on the capture was really good and I was surprised by how much could be seen but my own captures were of course done with planetary cameras so I never considered how a modern camera like the SL2 might have an advantage with actual real time exposure. Very nice. And thank you for the kind words. Really impressive real time view capture though. I enjoyed seeing that!
The little one refractor is avesome!
I have 3 telescopes at home: a Celestron Travel Scope 70 (My favorite, a 70mm with 400mm FL), a Meade Infinity 50 ( 50mm, 600mm FL), and an antique Jason Explorer 400 (A 60mm with 800mm FL). Looking into possibly getting a 6 or 8 inch scope. The only thing I hate about SCT's are they are so dadgum expensive! Especially if you opt for a motorized mount. However, this definitely breaks down what details I can see on Jupiter and the moon. I'd definitely like to see a video on how different bright deep-sky objects like M31 and M42 may look to the eye between these two scopes with comparable magnification. Where I'm at, the 70mm scope just barely shows the Sombrero Galaxy as a tiny, barely discernable smudge in a 20mm eyepiece. Even my 60mm doesn't pick it up with a 40mm eyepiece.
Globular clusters will start looking good with an 8” telescope. Galaxies are still going to be dim smudges unless you are at a really dark site. That is why I have my Unistellar eVscope, which does live image stacking to help see those quickly and easily without much setup time. You can do the same with any telescope and a camera and live stacking software with a little more effort.
It is hard to show what deep sky objects look like in the eyepiece on these telescopes since you really have to eyeball it in the image processing. A live video view of a deep sky object isn’t going to look as good as it does to the human eye but if you do several second exposures it will looks better than the human eye. You can maybe get the brightness about the same but then it will be very grainy in the video which of course isn’t accurate to how it looks visually. If you use exposures long enough to remove most of the grain you usually end up showing more detail than you see when watching visually. So it is a hard thing to show well.
All the product literature and reviews are much less impressive than the evidence of your eyes. I had no idea that a doublet refractor would do so poorly against the reflector. Much appreciated for sidestepping buyers remorse.
Thanks for the video, the SCT clearly wins. I have a canon 60d, what accessories I need to buy in order to capture images with SCT?
You are going to need a canon T2 thread adapter and then a T2 1.25” nosepiece to allow you to put the camera in the visual back or a diagonal. I would highly recommend a 2-3x Barlow lens or powermate to help increase the focal length for planetary imaging.
Excellent video. Actually 70 mm is not even 3 inch but 2.75 inch.
Nice demonstration😍
Greta footage! Thanks.
Helpful vid!
Nicely done!
Nice tips too!
Thanks!
Brilliant Demo, thank you :)
Around 3:00 sounds like some birds were either pist'off , or plain rude . 🐣
Yeah we are right next to a green belt so get all kinds of wildlife.
Wish you had done split screen side my side comparison
What about nebula and galaxies? It would be nice to see the comparison with the different light gathering capibilities
It is hard to show that since the different focal lengths and ratios make it hard to give a good comparison when using a camera. Biggest difference is the refractor gives a much wider field of view and the SCT gathers more light. I’ll need to try and work out a good comparison in that regard.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience a reflector telescope will give a wider field of view because of the bigger mirror. I don't think it would be that difficult to compare if your able to compare the planet's
The SCT has a much narrower field of view than the refractor since the focal length is larger and you are limited by the rear port of the scope. The 6” SCT is 1500mm and that 70mm refractor about 480mm and both have a 1.25” visual back/focuser. So, you can only get up to 1.1-1.2 degrees whereas the refractor will give a few degrees. You can get a larger field of view with a reducer but you end up with severe vignetting. The refractor would give an even wider field of view if it had a 2” focuser. What I meant is that because the focal lengths are so different you have to cobble together various types of barlow lenses or try to image through an eyepiece to try and get a similar magnification or a similar focal length or focal ratio for an apples to apples comparison. But simply showing the large difference if field of view at the native focal length would be useful too. I no longer have either of these telescopes but could do a similar type of refractor/SCT comparison with other telescopes.
Good vid!
Nice. Just subscribed.
It took 9 months to get my Celestron Evolution 6, and I now want to get a ZWO color camera to acquire short exposure bright object images. Do you have any suggestions?
The 224MC is a great starter camera for doing planetary images. If you want to do any kind of deep sky though you probably want to try one that has a larger image sensor since the field of view in a C6 is small with the 224MC and its small chip. If you want to do planetary imaging, obviously you don't need a big sensor, and really the most important thing is that the camera can do a high frame rate, like over 100fps. Some of the ones with big sensors can still do that as long as you only capture a small area. Even with the 224MC you can just capture a 640x480 region to maximize frame rate. Of course the max frame rate you can capture does also depend on your computer as you need to have a USB3 connection and an reasonably quick SSD to max out the frame rate. that is normal on any newer laptop, so usually not an issue, but something to be aware of.
Great...Lot of work there, thanks. I have a Celestron Nexstar Evolution 6" ordered. Also, I'm considering adding a ZWO CMOS camera. I have a Nikon D700 and D610, but figure a ZWO would work easier with astro imaging. Your thoughts please?
Thank you 🥰
Very realistic. (6" apo owner)
Looks like the Ranger could use some vibration suppression pads.
I was tracking by hand but would let it settle for a while the track a bit more and let it settle. All the shaky parts get dropped from the image stack. The vibration pads would have helped some but usually I don’t bother using them since I can still get enough good frames during a 90 second capture.
Very interesting. Thank you.
Nice video. I got very nice views on the planets with my Skywatcher Ed80/600 on imaging did perform decent but i am thinking to buy a 6 inch Rc or Cassegrain or Maksutov to improve planetary imaging, with 150mm diameter should perform much better then a 3 inch telescope for planetary imaging. will make a video soon with my results on planets with the Skywatcher Ed80
I'm interested in buy one telescope and I don't know which one is the best, do you have any saggestion?
@@humbertogaburel5815 Hello! For astrophotography i will recommend a short focal length refractor from 360 to 600mm focal length, for planets you will get better results with a bigger aperture and focal length telescope.
Perfect.
Did you use any stacking software in post?
I use Autostakert for stacking and Registax for wavelet sharpening of the still images produced from the video captures.
Iam thinking about getting a sl2 or sl3 do you recommend any other camera above these that isn't too much more expensive? thank you for videos!
Everything appears to be moving towards mirror-less cameras so that would be something to consider though I don’t have a lot of knowledge in that area. Canon has their new 90d out which makes some of their colder cameras that are still great like the 80d or even 70d cheaper. However, if you are just doing astrophotography a dedicated Astro camera like one of the ZWO cameras would be cheaper. Obviously a DSLR serves double duty for vacations and everything else.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience Thank you for help!
Very nice. Just bought them Twilight 1 and have it together with a C5 and have a Celestron Travel 80, not quite a TV haha. What mount do you have that on?
Really like the ES mount and slo-mo controls. Checking out the Nexstar mounts and C6. So your videos are nice.
Are you going to observe Mercury transit?
Yep I plan to observe the mercury transit. I have a solar filter for the televue and will probably pick one up for the C6. I really like the C5, it is a great portable scope and puts up nice views. The C6 is quite a bit bigger. I have the televue on a manfrotto tripod with the mount head that came with it. It works pretty nice but isn’t too steady over 100X but still useable. Makes for a great portable setup though and works as a spotting scope too. Took it to Yellowstone this past May to watch bears and things.
I've been thinking about getting a telescope that I can hook my dslr to so I can get pics of Saturn and Jupiter. Would you say the celestron c6 is a good choice?
You can get good shots of the planets with a C6 once you have had practice. A bigger scope is always better for increased resolution but of course harder to set up. I use the C8 now but it isn’t a huge step up from the C6. It only produces better images when the seeing is good. It takes some trial and error to figure out the best video settings with your camera to produce the best set of video frames for stacking. It took a year or more before I started getting good results. Especially since there is a learning curve to the processing of the data.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience as a beginner should I buy a celestron newtonian 5 inch. Or celestron starsense dx 6 sct. Please suggest.
@@sandeepkarmalkar7209 the C6 will do better on planets but the 5” Newtonian will show you a larger field of view making it easier to find things and will do better on larger deep sky objects. Those Celestron 5” Newtonians that allows you to use your phone to find things would probably get a lot of use because it is easy to setup and fast to find things and such. That would make a great companion to maybe an 8” SCT if you bought one of those eventually. Only downside with the 6” SCT is that it is a great single telescope but having a smaller reflector or refractor and then a bigger 8” Newtonian or SCT would eventually be a better combo.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience thank you🙏. Your views on gso dob 6 inch and celestron starsense newtonian 5 inch. As a beginner which should I choose.
What is the benefit of the filter that you used?
Mostly just to remove the blue fringe you see on bright objects with a refractor that isn’t an apochromate. Objects like the moon, Jupiter, or bright stars will have a blue or purple fringe around them through a refractor telescope that isn’t an Apo. The filter removes that color fringe but because it removes part of the blue/purple color it leaves the image a little more yellow looking. With a higher quality refractor you don’t need or want to use the filter. You don’t even really need the filter in this telescope for general use. Cameras pick up the color fringe more dramatically than your eye does. Especially if your eyes are older and you have less ability to see that wavelength
Nothing wrong with an sl2. I've yet to test my d5600 out due to poor weather. DSLR's perform pretty much the same when it comes to astrophotography.
I use an ASI224MC now. The main advantage is the higher frame rate and getting the raw video without any compression. That all helps you get slightly better images. Not huge differences, but when the seeing is bad you get more useable frames, so those types of cameras are better at producing a good image in poor conditions. It is easier to start with a DSLR though and sometimes I still use it because you don’t have to bring a computer out with you.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience Thats exactly the reason I switched to DSLR... It would be nice to have an all in one dedicated astro cam that streams to your phone and does exposures.
Excelente video
Could I get pictures like yours with a Celestron 127eq and a smartphone? Thanks a million. I'm looking for a telescope and the Celestron seemed like a good deal.
It is hard to produce good planetary images with a smart phone. I haven’t tried but you might be able to with an application that gives you more control over the camera. The default camera apps usually won’t produce great results since you want to process raw data as much as possible and a lot of times the phones compression and processing make it hard to get a good image if you plan to stack frames.
You’re not saying how you took the pics? A-Focal? Was the camera a cropped or full frame?
Whether through East her scope, you won’t see that with your eye.. So you have a zoom to it’s cropped.
The Canon SL2 used is a crop sensor camera. Wasn't a focal, but had a barlow lens in front of the camera. I can't remember at this point what I used then. I use a 2.5x televue powermate now. Either way same combo was used on both. I of course had to scale the retractor one up for the images with the same size. You can get better views visually than these images through a 6” or larger scope when the seeing is good. There have been a couple of nights I've had that had spectacular seeing. We can get some great nights down here in Oklahoma during mid-late summer when a big upper level ridge is parked over head. Now there will be a lot of nights where the views if Jupiter are terrible. A lot of this year has been bad but I've had 1-2 nights of pretty good seeing but nothing spectacular yet.
That is so cool Stephen. Love it, You got some goodly toys too.
Thanks! Yes they are nice toys to have for sure!
Hey Brother I'm planning to get a telescope to mostly see planets, I'm a newbie ,I know nothing about telescopes,I do enjoy watching Neil Degrasse Tyson "just a side note" I'm planning to get the 10" Dob , I also have in mind the Celestron 8se I do have around $1500 I can even go a little higher ,but like I sad there a too much info and options, aperture, f/4 f/5 f/10 ,plus lenses and eye pieces, please guide me on what to get to have a good definition of Planets jupiter, saturn and nebulas without that fuzziness view i appreciate
So you will eventually end up going through all kinds of different telescopes if you stay in this hobby a long time. The issue is no telescope can do everything well. SCT scopes are comfortable to use and do well at most things but aren’t really great at anything besides portability and ergonomics. However, for me those often end up being the biggest factors. Dobsonian scopes are the best bang for the buck, and a 10” dob will do great at a lot of things. But without a comma corrector or higher end televue type eyepieces they will show comma on the outside of the field of view. Not a huge issue as that may or may not bother you. The big issue is that they are big and harder to move around easily unless you get a lightweight version. I don’t like the ergonomics as much either. Refractors will give you the most consistently great views but are super expensive if you want good quality in something more than a few inches across. I like the combo of a small refractor for wide field views and for East portability (also for taking on vacations for looking at wildlife, etc) plus a larger scope of some type. Both an 8” SCT and a 10” dob can show great views of planets. However, seeing varies a lot so you might get terrible views your first dozen times using it and then suddenly get a still night that produces amazing views. I have yet to get a good early morning view of Jupiter this year for example. But once we get into mid summer I know I probably will. In any event, views of deep sky objects will largely depend on your level of light pollution. Star clusters will look great but nebula and galaxys, besides some bright ones, will be meh from a city but great from a dark site in an 8-10” scope. The 10” dob should beat the 8” SCT in theory, but I would always take the 8” SCT for the more comfortable ergonomics and easier portability. If you can keep the scope by your door and easily move it out then it may not matter as much. Another option is to keep it in the garage if you have one, on a cart or something you can just wheel out when you want to use it. I assure you a scope that is easier to move around and use will get used a lot more in the long run.
Dobs are nice, but you kinda get tired of following whatever by hand. Especially when you start boosting magnification. I've an 8 inch and have seen some real nice views. But trying to follow Jupiter or Saturn at 200x or more is such a pain. But enjoy whichever you choose, it's a wonderful hobby.
SCT works even better with the Hyperstar .. It lets in way more light.
Yes for deep sky, but that is worse for planets since you usually want to be imaging around f/25 to not be over or under sampling.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience Why I said the SCT is the best of both worlds. You get both...Without having to run out and buy two scopes.
This is true. You can really push SCTs to do just about everything which is why I always have one or two of them.
I don't understand your comment at 0:56, "this is running right now about f/22, f/21.8, focal length about 1536". The Televue Ranger is 480mm focal length, f/6.8 (written on the tube in the video plus www.company7.com/televue/telescopes/ranger.html). Focal length is fixed by the glass shape and unless you reshape the glass, it's going to stay 480mm. You could change the f/# with an aperture mask but to bring the 480mm to f/21.8 it would mean a mask of 22mm diameter, pretty poor in terms of resolution. Anyway....so I don't get what "running ...about f/22" means.
Right, but I had some barlows/powermates in the imaging train which increase the focal length.
sorry was logged in with my other account, but that was my response.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience ah, I see. I guess that makes sense.
Where are you located (generally)?
Tulsa, OK area
Nice
Is that a weed plant
Haha, yeah the achromatic refractor makes it look a bit that way
@@EarthtoSpaceScience 😄😄
A guy is selling his Celestron Sky Prodigy 6SCT in good order for $900 AUD ,,, I want to buy it so bad BUT is this an ok price
I’m not sure exactly how that translates to US dollars to be sure but I would be wary of the sky prodigy mount. While it is a good system in terms of the way it tracks and aligns I’ve heard that isn’t a very sturdy mount. Certainly you cant put anything heavier than a C6 on it. The 6SE mount can at least hold a C8 if you later wanted to upgrade. Maybe someone else who has had a sky prodigy can chime in. The C6 is a great scope my only concern is how good that mount is that comes with that system. You can remove the scope and put it on a other mount later so no issue there.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience $900 Australian Dollars is about $655 US
@@EarthtoSpaceScience 12 years ago $1,00 Australian was worth $1.10 US, Now $1,00 AUD will buy about 72c US,, Apart from not being able to travel due to Covid-19 it would be a great time for Americans to travel around our great country Australia lol plus Apart from the State Victoria the Majority of Australia is Covid-19 free ...Stay Safe : )
Those damn birds!
The first view of the moon is upside down......I thought only reflectors gave views like that?
Both refractors and SCTs product upside down images when used without a diagonal. So if you put the camera into the telescope directly, then everything is upside down. When you put I diagonal in, you flip the image again so it is right side up, but it is reversed left to right.
Also, it depends which way I have the camera in. Sometimes I’ll just flip the camera over so it is the correct orientation but sometimes I don’t depending on where I want the cable to be that sticks out of the camera.
The 6 sc puts the Refractor to shame.i my self only use a orion 8 newt or a orion 6 inch newtonian telescope.
80mm aperture at least
The C6 wins easily ..easily except widefield and even then a focal reducer will bring it to 1.5 degrees easily..some TV owners will want this video pulled down
Dale capo 👍
This does not look like average seeing, but like very good seeing. There would be a more noticeable difference between both scopes if it was just average.
Well, depends where you live. For the northern US day, this would be good. Here in the souther US where the jet stream is far north of us for half the year and we often have ridges of high pressure aloft in place, we can get spoiled with often two or more straight months of good and occasionally excellent seeing. So, average seeing for here in Oklahoma in the summer anyway. Being from Chicago originally, I know that the seeing is crap for much of the year up there, so it where you live makes a huge difference.
Davide VS Golia..............
Das C 6 ist klar besser da mehr licht und Öffnung hat und somit auch mehr Auflösung,
The Ukrainian Elite ZLOST 178 Astro Apo Club "Shtrelchyuck" Rulez!!!
The sct look bad 8 inche Newtonian Reflector will blow them all away
My 8” SCT can do superb images when seeing is good. The Newtonian should be a little better but the SCT is super convenient. I got rid of my 10” reflector because I just didn’t use it much due to size.
So basically both are the same, the only difference is money
Nasa s telescopes can see every centemeter on moon,yet there is no decent fotos on internet....
молодец
The ranger is overpriced in my opinion
Certainly it isn't up to the standards of today's refractors in terms of color correction, and you can get a better scope for cheaper now. However, the optics on them are incredibly sharp, and so it is still a great scope if you can get one for a good price.
@@EarthtoSpaceScience Is six hundred a good price? I'm looking now.
I don’t really have a good handle on what those normally go for right now. You can definitely get a new 80ED that will outperform the ranger at that price so that is kind of the issue. The ranger of course is nice and compact and built very well.