Chefgage

Thanks for that. I am not so much after lots of detail but more to understand how to get the sizing correct. I will give you an example. This is a photo that looks similar to what i was seeing from my back garden (moon not as orange). Whan i tried to take a similar shot using my 18-55mm set at 55mm the resulting moon size appeared a lot smaller against the forground than it looked with my naked eye against the forground. Unfortunitly i do not have my photo any more as i deleted it. Appologies to the person who took this for me using as an example here.

Thanks. It all goes back to trying to take a picture of that nice looking full moon through a smart phone. That nice sized moon ends up being a tiny dot in a smart phone camera picture. It is slightly better when i try with my 18-55mm dslr lens on a canon 200d set at 55mm but still not the same? It appears very small. Is it a case of take the picture with the 55mm lens then crop to the size i want?

I have been having a read and from what i can gather the 'large moon' i am seeing is more of an optical illusion and not something that will be photographed at the same apparent size. Is this the correct understading. I suppose i could take two photos, one of the moon through a larger lens (200mm?) and one of the forground through a 55mm lense and then photoshop them together. Or is there a better way?

I thought about the same with regards the 50mm mark being what your eyes see. I did take a quick photo but that did not represent what i could see with regards the moon size. It was a lot smaller. I am not after getting closer (i have my 200p newtonian telescope if i want to do that, and have done). Its just that when i take a photo of the moon it appears a lot smaller than what i can see with my eye.

Hello all. I will paint the scene. I was looking out the window the other night and between the house and tree across the road was the biggest orange moon i have seen for quite a while. I was low down in the horizon positioned nicely between the house and tree. I thought to myself this would make a loverly picture ?. Only problem is that i have only got a EF-S 18-55mm f3.5 - 5.6 lens, which is fitted to a Canon200d. Obviously taking this photo opertunity with this lens would present just a small disc and not what i was actually seeing. So my question is what type/size lens would i need so that what i see with my eyes i would see in the photograph i would take. Thanks.

What???

Heres mine of the orion nebula. It was taken using a skywatcher 200p on a dobsonian mount with a canon 200d camera. This was just a single shot with no post procesing done (you can obviously tell).

Thanks for confirming that for me. Just need some more clear skies now. I was amazed when i bought the camera and tripod, that usually means weeks of cloudy skies (it certainly was when i bought my scope). But last night was good for me for a couple of hours.

Finally got myself a dslr and i tripod so i can try out the tutorial at the begining of this thread. Quick question, from what i have read the quick picture i took as a test last night has the stars as small discs rather than points of light. Is this a focusing issue? I just set the camera (canon 200d) to manual and changed the iso and exposure settings. Iso was 400 and exposure was 30s.

Heres mine from yesterday morning. Bit of earthshine visible. This was on my galaxy S8+

I went down the digital setting circle route using a digital rotary encoder and wixey angle gauge for altitude. The write up of the mods i did are here

I second that of putting down a gravel bed before pouring the concrete. I too have very clayey ( im sure thats a word ) soil. When i put down the foundations for my decking/pergola i put a good layer of gravel in each hole and tamped it down hard with a bit of a 100x100 post.

Well I certainly think collimating my skyliner 200p has made a big difference. I went out last night, seeing conditions weren't that great as the moon was out and not many stars were visible. I could even nearly read my star charts by moon light! Decided to try and have a good look at Jupiter as last time I looked at Jupiter was before the collimating. This time I could see a lot more detail but it was still a bit 'hazy' - anyone else see it as a bit hazy? But what I did see that amazed me was Io transiting Jupiter. Saw a black dot about half way across the planet, a quick look at an app on my phone confirmed what I was seeing, so very happy with last nights viewing.

^ I used a combination of the guide posted in this thread, astro babys guide and another guide I found. Its a straight forward process i can see, its just knowing what screws do what. I will have another go at some point, but like what has been said will I notice any difference.

The next thing is figuring out how to do that. You said it will not effect the viewing so is it really necessary? I will still have a go though (i like learning :)) I have one central screw which i understand alters the distance of the secondary mirror to the primary thus enabling you to center the secondary in the focuser. I then have three allen screws to alternthe tilt of the secondary mirror. So what do I have to rotate the mirror?

I think i know what you mean now. Are you refering to the dark ring that surrounds the smaller white circle with a dot in it. From my picture the black lone part that sticks out appears to point slightly down. Does this point to the right i.e. pointing towards the primary

Hi thanks for that. Could you explain what you mean by 'the black offset points towards the primary'

I have a skyliner 200p telescope. Just got myself a chesire to collimate. Could all you knowledgable people have a look at my before and after pictures to see if you think it is now collimated.