EOS 10D picture of the moon

Most Impressive;could we have some tech.info?Cheers Tony

quote:

---

Originally posted by velofellow:
Most Impressive;could we have some tech.info?Cheers Tony

---

Sure, I used an EOS 10D with a T ring adapter to connect it straight to the visual back on the telescope. The telescope was one of these Nexstar 5i
I set the camera onto P and set the metering to centre weighted, then took the picture using the timer to avoid any camera shake. I didnt mess with settings beyond this as it was just a first attempt to see what sort of image quality i could get. It was shot as a large size jpeg..

cheers

Neil

Stunning pic, Neil.

Nice one.

JR

Good job. People have been getting some really stunning DSO results with the 10D and its little sister the 300D:



More here

Of course that Nexstar mount isn't going to take you very far Neil, as you've probably already discovered....

All my own work.

ejl, your right re the mount and from the link i can see i have plenty to learn! Did you take the shot? The magnification i get just attaching straight on the visual back isnt too hot... I havent worked out yet how to get shots like Nime's other than to try and shoot down an eyepiece.
Ive also got an 8in telescope which is about double the focal length of the small Nexstar, and that has a German equatorial mount...

All tips and hints gratefully received!

Cheers


Hawk

Hawk, I only wish that was my astrophotograph. I'm a rank amateur and have so far only played around with a Toucam Pro and a Nexstar 8 (which is how I know you're going to have tracking problems). My results are not ready for prime time, to put it mildly.

You can probably do some basic eyepiece projection to get higher magnification on the moon and brighter planets with your Nexstar. (Perhaps this is what you did Nime?) At longer focal lengths you need longer exposures and hence good tracking, however.

Great pictures, especially for a first attempt. I don't have the optics or camera to do anything like that - my little sony digicam doesn't have the reach

This leads me onto another question though. It's probably an insane idea but it's something that's been in my head for a while.

You can get the orbital times for the International Space Station from NASA and I've seen a few telescopes that claim to have automatic tracking of satellites including ISS.

As far as I can tell you get about 4 minutes horizon to horizon on most passes over the UK which makes it nigh on impossible to acquire and shoot anything manually. So - could you use a telescope such as your Celestron to track ISS across the sky and get some photos of it?

Hey I did say it was an insane idea! I don't follow astronomy at all so I'm sure there are a whole load of reasons why that's not practical but I just think it would be cool...

Marc,

You can track and photograph the ISS and other man-made satellites with the right gear. A Celestron or other scope with digital setting circles (computer tracking of sky objects) can be tied in to a laptop, which in turn can download the latest position data of man-made satellites and feed it to the scope. (Unlike the stars, satellite data can't be permanently programmed into the scope computer since satellites' orbits are constantly changing due to gravity, atmospheric drag, etc. Hence their position data must constantly be updated).

Here's a pic of the ISS that a guy recently took with a large 'scope by hand tracking(!):

VERY cool.
Gives me a case of the camera itch again...
David

I once took a picture of similar quality to Hawk's at the top of the page except it was a crescent moon. I came out the darkroom, dried the print and showed it to my Gran. She said "What's that, a dolphin?"

ejl

Where do you have to live to get a pic of the nebula like that?

Steve B

The nebula is in Orion which is rising a couple of hours after dark. With a good pair of binoculars it can be spotted in the region of the belt.

However bear in mind that with such equipment it will be small and with all visual viewings won't be in colour.

I haven't had a chance to try my Nikon D70 with my 8" Meade LX50 - after seing this posting I'm certainly looking forward to the next clear dry night! I may even have something worth posting!

Dobbin's right, the nebula in orion is very easy to see from the UK and even a modest telescope will give you a good view..

I use a program called Starry Night Backyard to find things and it is superb. You set it to your home location and it will give you a picture of what you should see from your garden. Just tell it what you want to see and it will find it and point it out for you... and if you cant see it now it will tell you when and where you can. Apparently the ISS will pass over at 12.15 today! It covers more or less everything from planets and deep space objects to satelites... It will allow you to zoom into objects to the extent that it will show you a view similar to ejl's

cheers

Hawk

[This message was edited by Hawk on Wed 01 December 2004 at 13:22.]

hawk,

how long have you had your scope?? how easy is it to align?

Ive had the 5i for about 12 ish months... I have the GPS unit too so alignment is a piece of cake.. takes a couple of minutes tops..
How do you get on with the Meade? I would have liked a Meade, but i have a shop 200 yards from my house that deal in Celestron so i went that route in the end...

The LX50's excellent, I'm poor at polar alignment. I wish I had the gizmo's to help align and hanker after go-to functionality (of course you don't learn the sky that way!). The finder scope on the LX50 is crap. My biggest bug bear is that the field tripod is magnetized, so when you insert the compass into the top of the stand it doesn't show north!! The thing takes a good 2 hours to cool due to its mass - by which time it's normally turned cloudy, or damp (I don't have a dew shield or heater), usual story I guess.

I've had many an enjoyable hour in the back garden looking at nebulae and the planets although I only use the thing in the winter. My view is prety much restricted to looking south as, although we live in a country area (no street lights), we have high trees bordering the garden.

What lenses do you use - I'm looking to buy a wide field one to view Pleiades/Milky Way/Andromeda etc but can't fathom out the options!?

The widest i have is a 26mm and the strongest is a 4mm although that really doesnt get much use at all.. Ive got a high quality X2 Barlow and tend to use a 17mm or 24mm most of the time using or not using the barlow depending on what im trying to look at. Like you i tend to use it most in winter... I suffer a bit from trees and light pollution so i can be quite restricted sometimes..
Although i do have goto, i dont use it that often.. I plan what i want to see using the starry night software, then go and track it down manually..

What lenses do you have/use?

cheers

Hawk

Am I the only one here who has moved to binoviewing? I bought a Denkmeier Standard a year ago and have been very pleased -- no comparison with monocular viewing.

Binoviewers have gotten very good recently and relatively inexpensive (the new Burgess and Siebert BVs are supposedly excellent also, and cheap). I highly recommend trying one out.

Since moving to BVs, I've reduced my eyepiece collection to just a few pairs of plossls: 32, 25, 17.5, 12, and 8mm.

quote:

---

You can track and photograph the ISS and other man-made satellites with the right gear... [snip]

---

Thanks for that ejl - a very informative answer and a cool photo to boot!

Marc.

My kit is an old, heavy-duty, motor driven, equatorial mounting and a 6" f/8 Celestron refractor with a 15mm Meade 4000 eyepiece. Sony P71 handheld up to the eyepiece.
The mounting is what makes it possible. It's rock steady on a massive welded steel pipe pier. The planets are much more difficult without a properly fixed camera. You need a low power eyepiece with a large eye lens to avoid vignetting and camera shake. The original image was half a meg. The (upload limited) image was rather small and fuzzy in comparison.

Nime