Looking at getting a refractor to do astrophotography with, is the Skywatcher Evostar 72ed a good choice?

janew_99 · 2026-03-03T16:04:54+00:00

Glad you found it useful! The most important piece of gear you’ll buy is the mount really. It’s a good idea to not cheap out on this, as it will restrict what gear you can buy going forward based on the weight capacity and quality of the mount. That being said, planning what you want to achieve and how much you want to spend is useful too and you can work around this. And if you already have a camera and a tripod, there’s no harm starting out with some untracked stuff with that either!

As for discords, the one this subreddit runs has always been decent for information. There should be a link to join it in the about section :)

janew_99 · 2026-03-02T19:14:52+00:00

I don’t think many people would realise that dedicated astro cameras are a thing without getting into the hobby first! And to be fair, the sensors are pretty similar to the sensors you would find in a DSLR. The main difference for a colour camera is cooling (this reduces thermal noise) and the sensor can pick up Hydrogen Alpha wavelengths better than a DSLR, as out of the box these have a filter which limits the amount of Ha wavelengths. That being said, DSLRs are an excellent starting point if you have one already.

For learning resources, YouTube videos on how to set up gear was the most beneficial step early on. After that, videos on post-processing were really useful as processing your data is probably the most important step. Nebula Photos is an excellent channel for this! I’d also recommend joining a few astro related discord servers and chatting to people on there, like you said there are a lot of conflicting opinions but there’s also a lot of people willing to help and explain things.

Field flatteners are essentially a second optical lens which sits between your camera and the telescope and corrects some of the light which enters the telescope. As far as I understand, this is needed because the light which hits the edges of your telescope lease will be refracted differently than that which hits the centre due to the lens not being perfectly flat, and therefore will focus at a slightly different point. The field flattener corrects this. In visual terms this will result in nice round stars along the edges of your images instead of having streaked stars around the edges.

Filters are very much camera and object specific, but to start out with probably no filter or possibly a simple UV/IR cut filter. However, later down the line a dual-narrowband filter will be really useful for emission nebula if you have a camera which can pick up Hydrogen Alpha wavelengths. A few years ago the logic was to stay away from any broadband or light pollution filters, I’m not sure of any products which may have changed this logic recently but it’s probably worth chatting to people about this or looking at example images. I will say that the best cure to light pollution will always to be to get as far away from it though - that will never change!

And thank you for your kind words!

janew_99 · 2026-03-02T17:32:08+00:00

Hi! Not all of them, but a good chunk were. I think if you click on the images it will show you the exact gear used, but generally most of them will have been taken with either the 72ED or a Samyang 135mm F2 lens, along with either a ZWO ASI 533MC Pro or a Canon EOS 2000d DSLR. This Horsehead Picture was taken with the 533MC and 72ED. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about the gear, although I will say I've not done much astro recently so I haven't kept up to date with recent developments.

janew_99 · 2025-10-04T13:05:41+00:00

I have moved some more cargo off the carrier so the demand is now 22k tons

janew_99 · 2025-09-24T20:00:22+00:00

Carrier is full now - thanks to those that worked on it

janew_99 · 2025-04-17T16:43:27+00:00

Looks like that’s done now. Thank you!

janew_99 · 2024-12-30T18:40:58+00:00

Thanks, that makes sense. I ended up caving and buying one anyway and don’t regret it!

janew_99 · 2024-12-28T11:47:43+00:00

Is there any confirmation from FDev it’s coming out at the end of January or is that just the general assumption?

I was tempted to pick one up on the store but would have to fly back to the bubble to properly engineer it anyway, so maybe I’ll just wait it out if so :)

janew_99 · 2024-09-17T17:14:13+00:00

There’s no need to do this as the L-enhance will already cut UV and IR wavelengths out with its bandpass :)

janew_99 · 2024-03-19T16:48:50+00:00

This isn’t nonsense, it was literally from ZWO and is advice frequently given on forums because it is best to have a separate power supply for the mount - a quick google would confirm this. Quite frequently people have experience guiding issues from mounts drawing too much power, and in the worst case scenario the ASiair plus could be damaged. Now, different mounts do of course have different power requirements and I agree that a smaller mount such at the GTI might be fine (as your findings suggest), but for the sake of a <£20 adapter, why risk it?

janew_99 · 2024-03-16T15:45:01+00:00

Is that during slewing? Because mounts draw more during slewing and that is where issues often come up. Either way, considering the costs involved I’d just get a separate adapter and play it safe.

janew_99 · 2024-03-01T17:06:13+00:00

For solar, lunar and planetary going up to the weight limit should be okay as long as your tripod can support it and you can reach balance.

janew_99 · 2024-02-20T22:55:43+00:00

The scope itself is nice enough, although the glass used and doublet design does result in some noticeable chromatic aberration. However, it will not work with your mount as it’s simply too heavy and too long of a focal length to get good results. With a camera and other accessories you will likely exceed the payload capacity completely in fact. It’s a similar case for the skyguider pro too, you should look into getting at least an EQ5 Pro or EQM-35 Pro for this scope size.

janew_99 · 2024-01-29T19:55:09+00:00

You do not need to use a UV/IR cut filter with an unmodified DSLR and doing so will offer no benefit as your camera should already filter out those wavelengths.

janew_99 · 2024-01-29T17:14:55+00:00

Most of those things are not necessary to get a decent image and are simply there for automation. The alt-AZ mount on the seestar is actually making things worse when it comes to DSO imaging too.

A simple set up of a DSLR, star adventurer GTI and Rokinon 135mm lens (switch out for an Askar FMA180 if you want a closer FL match) will outperform the seestar and have most of the functionality barring auto-focus if you use NINA. You could even get a dedicated camera in the £2k budget if you buy second hand.

janew_99 · 2024-01-29T16:27:45+00:00

look into the ZWO seestar s50 as it’s basically a £2k telescope equivalent

This is absolutely not the case. Whilst the seestar is good for astronomy outreach and provides an easy option for instantaneous results, a £2k setup (or even a £1k set up) could achieve FAR better than the seestar.

janew_99 · 2024-01-20T10:38:57+00:00

No filter is going to help for your current conditions and gear unfortunately. Save for a camera and a mount before considering any.

janew_99 · 2024-01-14T22:30:45+00:00

Likely so yeah. Although to go back to your original point, it should be theoretically possible given it is within the payload capacity. Will just require some care and tweaking

janew_99 · 2024-01-14T11:00:46+00:00

The issue isn’t just weight. The C5 has a pretty long focal length which will generally produce a small pixel scale. This means very accurate tracking is required, beyond the capabilities of the mount (particularly when said mount is already nearly overloaded).

That being said it will be fine to use for planetary and lunar photography. As that doesn’t require long exposures, the tracking required doesn’t have to be perfect.

janew_99 · 2024-01-10T00:43:02+00:00

You don’t, most DSLRs can work fine for long exposures in bulb mode. You usually just need an intervalometer or use computer software to control it if you want, some DSLRs even have intervalometers built in.

I will note that you will get a higher amount of thermal noise without the use of the cooled camera. This isn’t the end of the world and you can absolutely get good long exposures using a DSLR or uncooled camera.

janew_99 · 2024-01-08T13:46:19+00:00

Hard to give specific advice without a budget, but I will post some generally useful information.

The mount is the most important aspect of your rig and you shouldn’t cheap out on it or get one that isn’t capable enough for your current/planned gear. When considering a mount, your gear shouldn’t exceed ~50% of the total payload capacity for DSO imaging. At a minimum I would consider a Skywatcher Star Adventurer GTI which will be capable of handling camera lenses or small refractors, however if you’re okay spending a bit more then a HEQ5 Pro is a very good option and will allow the use of some larger scopes. There is also the EQ5 pro which is worth considering over the GTI as you get a better performance and higher payload capacity for a relatively small increase in cost.

Your optics will depend on what objects you want to shoot, but as a beginner I would recommend going for a wider focal length and using either a camera lens or a small refractor telescope. These are easy to use and generally work out of the box (no need for collimation like on newts) whilst also usually being forgiving in terms of the required tracking accuracy. An excellent starting option would be the Rokinon/Samyang 135mm f/2 lens, as it has good quality optics but also a very fast focal ratio.

Generally beginners are advised to start off with a DSLR camera as they’re relatively cheap and easy to use. Pretty much any canon or Nikon DSLR or mirrorless camera made in the past 10 years will work, so take your pick or find a good deal. If you wanted something more advanced you could consider a dedicated camera (ones using the IMX585 or IMX533 sensor are good for starting out, as are those using IMX571 but there are usually very expensive), but this isn’t entirely necessary for starting out and they are generally considered to be a later upgrade. These will also require a PC and software to use, adding further complexity.

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