This is what I did with Nikon P520D bridge Camera

[Stub Mandrel]

As I prepare to get going with a decent scope, these are a the best shots I got using my Nikon Coolpix P520D. This has optical zoom to 1000mm equivalent. Going by the resoltion of moon craters it appears to resolve right down to its theoretical limit.

Tips for beginners trying this:

You need a manual mode, you won't get anywhere expecting the camera to meter on point/small sources (except for the moon).

Obviously use a tripod and self-timer. Turn off vibration reduction.

Night mode (ISO64000) is very noisy,  Note that above about ISO400 (depending on mode) the maximum exposure time drops. For constellations aim for lower ISO if you can raise the exposure time BUT for zoomed in shots shorter exposures stop you getting little lines.

It's worth doing a lot of experimenting with exposures, film speeds, aperture. These are stored in the file information and you can use the disp button when previewing an image. This means you can see what works best on some test shots, then run off a sequence for stacking later.

Expoect planets to need short exposures, they are in full sunlight! Moons of jupiter need a longer exposures.

Careful use of gamma, followed by contrast, can bring out lower magnitude stars but beware of convincing yourself noise is an intense star field!

Finally, try the digital 2xzoom. It uses the four coulered sensors as four separate pixels for brightness, but shares the colour informnation so it is increased resolution. This means using autofocus, but you can fool it - focus manually, then switch to landscape autofocus. Every time you activate the self timer it will autofocus, give up and return to the focus you set it on. I only found this out last week, and it's a great trick giving you 2000mm equivalent.

Sorry if this is all a bit presumptious for a beginner, but I know my pictures don't compare well with proper scope shots, but i hope they might inspire people with a decent zoom camera to have a go.

Moon, stackedwith registax, note the artefact of a bright ring on the edge, not sure what I did wrong...

Jupiter, clearly not as good as a scope picture, but I was amazed that the rings actually show up in some unstacked shots.

The shot above worked into a compoisite with the moons:

A very small mars, I'm 100% sure I can do a lot better than this!

Saturn, I nearly fell over when I took my first shot and could see the rings! Roll on autumn ;-)

I haven't really tried hard on clusters yet, this is a poorly processed shot of the Plieades, a stack of just three images.

Here's jupiter again, I was amazed that you can image the satellites while there is still blue in the sky:

I had to use a welding filter for the eclipse, so the images aren't very sharp. This one looks cool, though:

Finally, the moon and venus unfortunately tehy conjunction would be below teh horizon and for the one a month earlier it was very overcast.

So... if you only have a camera with a decent zoom and no scope, have a go, but beware you will enfd up with a full hard disk and, eventually, a decent scope...

Neil

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice set of images. Nice to see what can be done with more basic equipment

[PeterCPC]

Just shows what you can do.

I loved the Moon pic. Did you try Deringing (dark side) in Registax?

Peter

[Slynxx]

Lovely work Neil. I too own a Bridge Camera. "Fuji Finepix SL1000". Stumbled upon your post looking for information & usage of this type of camera. I've scanned the internet for specifics about the camera, but Google can be bit of a minefield at best. Thanks for breaking down how you used the settings to capture what you have. I'm going to keep it in mind & play a bit more with settings plus get out from my light polluted yard into the wilderness to see if it helps with noise reduction. Any pointers on that would be fantastic.

[JamesF]

That's certainly a respectable enough picture of the Moon for a bridge camera.

James

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Excellent demonstration of what can be done with a modest bit of kit.

[laudropb]

Very nice. Thanks for showing what can be achieved.

[Stub Mandrel]

I'm flattered by the sudden flurry of interest in this post from back in march!

It was these results that encouraged me to get a scope.

It may be my eyes (I'm quite short sighted) and though I find looking through a scope amazing, I also find it very tiring, so photographing things is a must.

[happy-kat]

Jupiter is amazing and using a bridge camera, really says get out there and try. I would never have thought that possible to pick up the banding.

Welding masks were mentioned on the big thread at the time of the eclipse. Didn't think they're did anything to cut solar rays just made it dark.