Photographing Objects In Bright Sunlight. At Night.

[major_clanger]

I have a telescope. I have a digital camera. It's dark and the Moon is out. What happens if I put all this together?








For superfluous technology junkies: taken with a Casio QV-3000EX through a Meade ETX-125EC Maksutov with a 40mm (first pic) and 14mm (second and third pic) eyepiece. Image processing via Paint Shop Pro.

Ths is the first time I've tried astrophotography with a digital camera (although I got some nice pics of Comet Hale-Bopp back in 1997 with a conventional SLR and zoom lens bungie-corded to a 12" telescope). Based on the first results I think I'll try some more!

MC

Comments

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

Lovely pics, Simon.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

How do you attach one to the other, and get all the focal plane stuff right? I'm impressed.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I have a great picture I took with my Cannon Ixus and a 25c telescope at Hurst Castle in California - simply by lining up the camera with the view finder. Just attaching things using the famous duct tape methods can work.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Er, I just pointed the camera into the eyepiece and manually adjusted exposure until I got good results (the first pic was 1/200 second, the others about 1/15). I've often seen it mentioned in astronomy guides that this can work surprisingly well with nice bright obkects such as the Moon, although using a digicam makes such a hit-and-miss approach a lot easier.

What I really need for any decent photography is a bracket to hold the camera rigid relative to the eyepiece, allowing for longer exposures, higher magnification, and better focus control. Now I'd like to say that I'd make one down the workshop, except that I don't have a workshop and am not very mechanically ept (something I'd like to rectify some day). Time for another visit to the local astronomy shop...

MC

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Wow. Cool. Thank you. More!

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

So, you also did today's APOD, right? :-)

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I was a bit flummoxed until I did a search and found that you meant the Astronomy Picture of the Day. How did I miss this until now?

Alas, I can't claim any credit for the picture in question. I would have been about ten months old at the time it was taken...!

MC