imaging difficulties with Nikon D3200 and dobsonian 250PX

[AndyUK92]

Morning All,

Last night i tried doing some imaging with my 250PX telescope and my Nikon D3200 DSLR. I have everything needed to mount it onto the telscope (T Ring, Nose Piece) But when i mounted it on and then went onto live view all i was greeted with was blackness.

Does anyone have any tips on how to resolve this? I didnt get the tinniest bit of light through.... I was also shooting in Manual mode.

Any advice would be great.

Thanks a lot guys,

Andy.

[opticalpath]

Is it possible that you are just well out of focus so any stars will be blurred into invisibility in live view?   If you can point the telescope at a distant terrestrial object in daytime, check focus that way then try again on the night sky.  Alternatively, point at a bright object like the Moon and focus on that first.  If it's correctly focused, brighter stars should be visible in live view, and fainter stars should appear in an exposure of a few seconds.

In fact, if you simply point at a bright star and try a 20-30 sec exposure then you should get at least a blurry disk if you're not too far off focus, then you can adjust focus by trial and error until the image is sharp and bright enough to be seen in live view.

Adrian

[AndyUK92]

Hi Adrian,

thank you for your comment, i am going to couple a barlow lense to the nose piece when i get in from work tonight and try to focus it on a distant object like you have mentioned.

Hopefully this works with the barlow being attached and i am going to try a long exposure on the stars. Also, the moon should be visible tonight so a bit of trial and error on the focuser should do the trick! i shall let you know in a few hours!

Andy