Celestron 5-inch Cassegrain- M42

[Todd H]

Hello all… yeah it’s been a while since I’ve been here on this forum. Not much going on in the world of photography or astronomy for me lately. Been busy with work and life as well.

Anyway, I purchased a Celestron 5-inch from Amazon so I could use it on my Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer as the OTA only weighs 6 pounds and the star adventurer has a max payload of 11 pounds. I bought it to take photos through it using my iPhone 15 pro max. I don’t have the skies or the desire to invest in ZWO cameras etc, I prefer to use my iPhone.

I took my first iPhone photos with it Thursday night through the eyepiece. Using the MSM (Move Shoot Move) Tridapter to hold the iPhone on the eyepiece, I captured the Orion Nebula with a 30 second exposure via NightMode on the iPhone ProRAW & Lightroom mobile edits. So far I like what I’m getting. The sky conditions were fairly lousy but I managed to come away with a decent shot. I’ll need to invest in a 82° field 1 1/4” Nagler eyepiece to get a wider shot. Seems like a hassle to go through just to use an iPhone, but that’s what I love shooting with. I usually manage to get shots from the iPhone that no one else thinks it’s capable of. I added a RAW file to show what the image looks like before any edits.

RAW FILE

 

[JimFox]

Hey Todd!

It's been a while! We do miss your photography.

The 5" is supposed to be a pretty good scope from what I have read. I am looking to get one of the 8" ones pretty soon, so I have been reading up on a bunch of them, and lots of people liked the 5".

Nice work with this. It will be interesting to see how far you can go with a single image. That will be cool to see, before the objects start getting too faint and you will require more images to stack to pull out the detail.

It will be fun to follow you on this journey.

Which iPhone is this? I finally upgraded to the 15 Pro Max, and I have quite a few photos posted from it in the other sections. And I have been using it for all of my Travel Guide videos now.

 

[Todd H]

Hey Todd!

It's been a while! We do miss your photography.

The 5" is supposed to be a pretty good scope from what I have read. I am looking to get one of the 8" ones pretty soon, so I have been reading up on a bunch of them, and lots of people liked the 5".

Nice work with this. It will be interesting to see how far you can go with a single image. That will be cool to see, before the objects start getting too faint and you will require more images to stack to pull out the detail.

It will be fun to follow you on this journey.

Which iPhone is this? I finally upgraded to the 15 Pro Max, and I have quite a few photos posted from it in the other sections. And I have been using it for all of my Travel Guide videos now.

Thanks Jim

I’m using the iPhone 15 pro max with ProRAW. I didn’t think to use the 28mm or 35mm equivalent focal lengths to get a tighter view through the eyepiece. I’ll do that next time… I should get some nice galaxy and star cluster images as well with this scope. It was $601 on Amazon. The s Cassegrain is limited to a 1 1/4” visual back, the 8” will at least have a 2” visual back.

since you now have the best iPhone on the market, you should download the Black Magic app for video. It’s free and very good. In fact, the MacBook Apple event that was released in October was filmed entirely on the 15 pro max using that app. I have it and really like it.

 

[JimFox]

Thanks Jim

I’m using the iPhone 15 pro max with ProRAW. I didn’t think to use the 28mm or 35mm equivalent focal lengths to get a tighter view through the eyepiece. I’ll do that next time… I should get some nice galaxy and star cluster images as well with this scope. It was $601 on Amazon. The s Cassegrain is limited to a 1 1/4” visual back, the 8” will at least have a 2” visual back.

since you now have the best iPhone on the market, you should download the Black Magic app for video. It’s free and very good. In fact, the MacBook Apple event that was released in October was filmed entirely on the 15 pro max using that app. I have it and really like it.

Thanks so much Todd. I will check out that Black Magic App.

I am not sure you will get much on Galaxies other then Andromeda, but it will be interesting to see if you do. Clusters are something I didn't use to like but I have been getting into them. I imaged about 2 hours last night on M3.

As for the Celestrons, I probably wont be doing any visual. I want to do planetary, and I like Astro cameras so I will get one that pairs well to the 8". It should be fun, but I will need a new mount, and will be getting the AM5 mount from ZWO to handle it.

 

[Todd H]

Thanks so much Todd. I will check out that Black Magic App.

I am not sure you will get much on Galaxies other then Andromeda, but it will be interesting to see if you do. Clusters are something I didn't use to like but I have been getting into them. I imaged about 2 hours last night on M3.

As for the Celestrons, I probably wont be doing any visual. I want to do planetary, and I like Astro cameras so I will get one that pairs well to the 8". It should be fun, but I will need a new mount, and will be getting the AM5 mount from ZWO to handle it.

As for the galaxies, I will try. My friend Darin got amazing shots of galaxies with his iPhone and 16” Dob. Lots of detail!!! But that was a 16”, not a 5”. I used to have a 20”, it was great. Anyway, I’ll share what I can get.

 

[JimFox]

As for the galaxies, I will try. My friend Darin got amazing shots of galaxies with his iPhone and 16” Dob. Lots of detail!!! But that was a 16”, not a 5”. I used to have a 20”, it was great. Anyway, I’ll share what I can get.

I look forward to what you get!

 

[Todd H]

I look forward to what you get!

Well Jim I got M51 with below average transparency and a 25mm eyepiece which gives 50x on the 5-inch. I need darker skies, and because I don’t have dark skies, I’ve already reached my limit of what I can get in my front yard.

…and two new shots of M42

 

[JimFox]

You did really nice! That's quite a bit of detail.

You need a broadband light pollution filter it looks like since you don't have darker skies at home. If you go for a broadband Light pollution filter, maybe it won't block too much light?

 

[Comet Hunter]

Very cool

 

[Todd H]

Well I am sending the C5 back due to multiple fingerprints (3-4) & a palm print within the corrector plate. This should have been noticed before it left the factory. I can’t really see them until a small amount of fog on the glass. I received a replacement today, it’s perfect. Would you do the same?

 

[Todd H]

My buddy Darin took these images with a 16” dob and an iPhone 13 Pro Max through the eyepiece in Fort Davis Tx. Amazing detail from the iPhone. He didn’t use ProRAW though, just HEIF. Otherwise the imagery would be a lot cleaner looking without the automatic noise reduction of HEIF / JPEG files. Goes to show what an iPhone can capture in 30”