The astro-media is filled with CCD images and articles these days along with statements about astro-photography being "dead". All this may make beginners feel that the MUST do CCD work or be ridiculed by peers. We feel that this is a very poor situation for beginners and they need to know that they can indeed do VERY NICE astro-imaging without the use of CCDs and with considerably less cash expenditures. We feel, based on experiences, that the CCD field is far more expensive than one is generally led to believe. This posting is meant to give a reasonably realitic assessment of the relative costs of doing astro-photography at various levels of investment as well as to make a comparison with the needs of CCD imaging costs.
INITAL INVESTMENTS FOR BEGINNERS:
For PHOTOGRAPHY and for CCD IMAGING we will assume that you have your own telescope already and will not take that initial cost into consideration. We will try to make apparent the 'hidden costs' and monthly costs' of each approach.
| ITEM | COST |
|---|---|
| Used 35mm Camera | $150 |
| Cable release | $ 15 |
| Film | $ 7 |
| Processing | $ 15 |
| TOTAL | $ 187 |
Extra costs: cost of film and processing each month, costs of buying hypered film from Lumicon. Costs of having prints made. Gadgets.
| ITEM | COST |
|---|---|
| PENTAX 6x7 camera | $ 750 |
| Cable release | $ 15 |
| Film | $ 7 |
| Processing | $ 15 |
| TOTAL | $ 787 |
Extra costs: cost of film and processing each month, costs of buying hypered film from Lumicon. Costs of having prints made. Costs of buying hypering kits and forming gas. Gadgets.
| ITEM | COST |
|---|---|
| PENTAX 6x7 camera | $ 750 |
| Cable release | $ 15 |
| JOBO Processor | $ 1500 |
| COLOR Enlarger | $ 2500 |
| TOTAL | $ 4765 |
Extra costs: cost of film, processing and printing materials each month.Costs of buying hypering kits and forming gas. Gadgets.
| ITEM | COST |
|---|---|
| CCD CAMERA SYSTEM | $ 2500 - $ 6500+ |
| PC or MAC System | $ 1500 - $ 5000 |
| QUALITY MONITOR | $ 750 - $ 1250 |
| PHOTOSHOP S/W | $ 300 - $ 550 |
| TOTAL | $ 4450 - $ 13300+ |
Extra Costs: Extra RAM, Bigger Hard Drives, External/Portable Hard Drives, Floppy Disks, Better Image Processing S/W. Costs of making hard copies or photo copies of images which includes, film, processing and prints.
One area that is generally hidden away when speaking of digital imaging is the problem of having hard copies of digital images made. Hard Copy devices that produce any sort of photo quality hardcopies run from $10000 to $25000 which is clearly beyond the capabilites of most amateurs. Having photo quality hardcopies made by digital imaging centers will generally run from $15-25 per hardcopy. The alternative to all this is to simply photograph the images off of the CRT screen and to then pay for the associated costs of film, processing and printing to make photo hardcopy prints.
If we take the initial costs, gadgetry, enhancements, and monthly costs of these two approaches and break them down we would see the following:
| ITEM | PHOTO | DIGITAL |
|---|---|---|
| INITIAL OUTLAY | $ 200 - 800 | $ 5.5K - 15K+ |
| ENHANCEMENTS | $ 200 - 5K | $ 1K - 30K+ |
| MONTHLY COSTS | $ 20 - 100 | $ 20 - 100 |
We think that this represents a reasonably fair comparison of the costs of these two approaches to astronomical imaging within the amateur community. We feel that amateurs need to be fairly informed of the realistic costs of these methods before they wade into either area. We note that the initial investment for digital CCD imaging is some 30X-40X the initial investments of getting into astronomical photography and that the costs of system enhancements are about 5X those of photographic systems. We point out to all that the costs of doing hardcopies in both systems involves about the same amount of cash outlay and so the hidden monthly costs of both approaches are reasonably equal.
One needs to consider more than just the current astro-fad du jour in choosing any sort of approach to astro-imaging. Clearly the costs of such a system is a serious subject that need to be fairly considered. The other major factor to consider is the intent of the imaging application. Do you want to take images to have fun or to just expand your views of the heavens ? Do you want to create an automated supernova patrol system ? Each of these reasons is a valid one and each will have its own needs.
The main advantage of film is its much larger field of view and its resolution capabilites (even the smallest of today's CCD pixels are many times the size of grain specs in films like Tech Pan or IIIa-J). Film is ideal for the imaging of objects that are larger than a few minutes of arc across and it is ideal for survey work or for most astrometric work of reasonably bright objects. Color Films are far more efficient at making color images than doing tri-color imagery using CCDs.
The main advantage of CCDs is their speed in recording images which makes them reasonably ideal for planetary work where their speed can take advantage of very brief episodes of excellent seeing in optical systems with very long focal lengths which can help to offset the coarse pixel sizes of CCDs. CCDs are ideal for the imaging of extremely faint objects and they are ideal for photometric applications where their linearity and digital data format is a great asset