Astrophotography

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robcal

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Right, the missus got me a telescope for Christmas. I've always been interested in astronomy, but never really got round to buying any gear.

Obviously it's not a state of the art scope in the slightest, and I know it's probably useless for taking good pictures, but what would I need to buy to attach my dSLR to it? I know I need a t-mount of some sort, but which one and where's cheap?

Also, any hints would be appreciated (although I am hoping to get a clear night at some point this decade).
 


robcal said:
Right, the missus got me a telescope for Christmas. I've always been interested in astronomy, but never really got round to buying any gear.

Obviously it's not a state of the art scope in the slightest, and I know it's probably useless for taking good pictures, but what would I need to buy to attach my dSLR to it? I know I need a t-mount of some sort, but which one and where's cheap?

Also, any hints would be appreciated (although I am hoping to get a clear night at some point this decade).
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Exactly the one I have, wobbled like fuck with a DSLR attatched to it but I'll be trying again.
 
Does the focuser have a male T-thread built in? (You may need to unscrew the end of the focuser to find out) If yes, you will only need a T-ring appropriate to your lens mount. If no you will need the T-ring plus an appropriate push-fit T-adaptor (either 1.25" or 2" depending on the diameter of your focuser drawtube). Both can be obtained from good astronomical dealers, eg Telescope House.

Does your mount have a Right Ascension (RA) drive and polar scope? If no then stick to the moon: take loads of shots and keep the best one. If yes then you could try webcamming the moon and planets, or alternatively whip the scope off and replace it with the DSLR and your best wide lens, take the whole set up somewhere dark and take some 5 minute shots of the milky way. As Snockerty says, this mount is a bit lightweight to hang the scope and a DSLR off it. The moon isn't too fussy though, as you are keeping exposures well under tracking or vibration problems.

Making Every Photon Count by Steve Richards (house writer for Sky at Night magazine) is a great introductory book.

robcal said:
Where did you get the mounting tube from?
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Not bad that, probably about as good as you are going to get from a single shot. The trick is to stack hundreds of images to beat the atmospheric seeing.

Registax is great freeware software that will do the job for you.
 
smoker said:
Does the focuser have a male T-thread built in? (You may need to unscrew the end of the focuser to find out) If yes, you will only need a T-ring appropriate to your lens mount. If no you will need the T-ring plus an appropriate push-fit T-adaptor (either 1.25" or 2" depending on the diameter of your focuser drawtube). Both can be obtained from good astronomical dealers, eg Telescope House.

Does your mount have a Right Ascension (RA) drive and polar scope?

Haven't got a clue! It's the motorised version for automatic tracking, but I haven't got as far as using this feature yet

If no then stick to the moon: take loads of shots and keep the best one. If yes then you could try webcamming the moon and planets, or alternatively whip the scope off and replace it with the DSLR and your best wide lens, take the whole set up somewhere dark and take some 5 minute shots of the milky way. As Snockerty says, this mount is a bit lightweight to hang the scope and a DSLR off it. The moon isn't too fussy though, as you are keeping exposures well under tracking or vibration problems.

Making Every Photon Count by Steve Richards (house writer for Sky at Night magazine) is a great introductory book.



Not bad that, probably about as good as you are going to get from a single shot. The trick is to stack hundreds of images to beat the atmospheric seeing.

Registax is great freeware software that will do the job for you.
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Cheers for this. Haven't had a chance to use the scope yet, so I've not really got round to looking into it very much yet. Only really had one clear night where I've been able to sit out and use the scope. After about 30 minutes I managed to find Jupiter, despite the fact that it was clearly obvious to the naked eye - some practice definitely needed I think!

Pretty amazing sight though; at first just a blob but a bit of focus and the lines across it were fairly clear. Was wondering why there were 5 tiny little very bright dots around it before I realised they were Jupiter's moons. Unfortunately by the time I got my more powerful eyepiece it had moved out of sight. 10 minutes later I still hadn't found it again, so I gave up for the evening.

Looking forward to getting back out again soon (although tonight, despite being clear was a bit too cold for me - been in the south too long).
 
Sounds like you need to align your finderscope with the main scope. You can do this in daylight - just scout about with the scope until it is pointing at a chimney or pylon or some other landmark. Then adjust the finderscope using the three screws (for each one you turn, turn the others two the same amount in the opposite direction) so it is pointing at the same landmark. When you come to use it at night, just line up Jupiter in the finderscope and it should be in the main scope.
 
robcal said:
by the time I got my more powerful eyepiece it had moved out of sight. 10 minutes later I still hadn't found it again
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I was under the impression that if the tripod is facing in the right direction to begin with, tracking objects as they move across the sky could be done by turning just one of the knobs rather than having to use both if it's just randomly set up.
Firstly, is this correct? Secondly, how do I know which way to set it up? Should there be a marker of some sort that should point North?
 
The Snockerty Friddle said:
I was under the impression that if the tripod is facing in the right direction to begin with, tracking objects as they move across the sky could be done by turning just one of the knobs rather than having to use both if it's just randomly set up.
Firstly, is this correct? Secondly, how do I know which way to set it up? Should there be a marker of some sort that should point North?
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Yup. It depends what sort of mounting the telescope is on, but if it's an equatorial mounting and you have polar aligned it, then you can simply turn the right ascension slow mo knob to track. Better still, if its got a RA motor drive, it will automatically track.

If your mount has a polar scope then it's just a case of pointing the whole ensemble north and adjusting the altitude and azmith of the mount so Polaris is in the middle of the polar scope. If you want to track accurately for imaging, you will need to faff about with date circles and that but this will be accurate enough for visual use.

It's harder if you haven't got a polar scope, but you can usually get it close enough with a bit of trial and error.

One trick I used to get around having to polar align every time was to mark the position of the tripod feet with a crayon on the patio. I would just leave the whole thing set up in my conservatory between uses and, when I wanted to do a bit of stargazing, carry it out and plonk it down on the spots.

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hope that helps
 
Thanks Smoker, it's an equatorial mount and my only defence is that it's always dark when I'm faffing around with the tripod, but I've just been and had a look and found a git big triangular moulding on the body. I'll set it up with that pointing north.
 
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Taken with an iPhone looking through the eye piece.
It took a couple of goes to get it positioned just right but i'm pretty pleased by it.
Anything better from me would require a better telescope and i'd rather spend that cash on hiring studios!
 
Jonny said:
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Taken with an iPhone looking through the eye piece.
It took a couple of goes to get it positioned just right but i'm pretty pleased by it.
Anything better from me would require a better telescope and i'd rather spend that cash on hiring studios!
Click to expand...

Cracking shot, goes to show you don't need £££££ of gear to get nice results.
 
smoker said:
Cracking shot, goes to show you don't need £££££ of gear to get nice results.
Click to expand...

Damn. You do realise at some point in going to have to get a telescope this year now :)
 
Jonny said:
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Taken with an iPhone looking through the eye piece.
It took a couple of goes to get it positioned just right but i'm pretty pleased by it.
Anything better from me would require a better telescope and i'd rather spend that cash on hiring studios!
Click to expand...

That's a cracking photo that. Which telescope do you have?? Quite fancy getting one but dont know where to start.
 
SAFC2403 said:
That's a cracking photo that. Which telescope do you have?? Quite fancy getting one but dont know where to start.
Click to expand...

Start by working out your budget and what you want to do with it. If you're only interested in visual then you can't go wrong with a Dobsonian reflector, like the Skywatcher Skyliner 200. If you want to do imaging then you will want something on a motorised mount, the Skywatcher Explorer 150P (Explorer 150PL if planets and the moon are your thing) is a decent entry level scope for that.
 
smoker said:
Start by working out your budget and what you want to do with it. If you're only interested in visual then you can't go wrong with a Dobsonian reflector, like the Skywatcher Skyliner 200. If you want to do imaging then you will want something on a motorised mount, the Skywatcher Explorer 150P (Explorer 150PL if planets and the moon are your thing) is a decent entry level scope for that.
Click to expand...

Cheers for that - will have to start saving!!
 
smoker said:
Start by working out your budget and what you want to do with it. If you're only interested in visual then you can't go wrong with a Dobsonian reflector, like the Skywatcher Skyliner 200. If you want to do imaging then you will want something on a motorised mount, the Skywatcher Explorer 150P (Explorer 150PL if planets and the moon are your thing) is a decent entry level scope for that.
Click to expand...

One more question - the Mrs has been looking into doing star trails pics. I've seen pics on flickr where the stars arent trailing. How are they doing that as the longer the exposure would show trails - the comments on flickr say they arent using a telescope??

Can you buy motorised mounts that you can fit DSLR's to??
 
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