Afocal help for a newbie

[Madhatter]

I recently bought a Astro engineering PH047 Afocal digital camera mount, and have a Panasonic lumix camera capable of taking up to 30sec exposures.

I have no problems taking a picture of next doors chimney:rolleyes: and when the moon is out im sure it will be fine for that too..But when i try and take a 15 sec exsposure of a star or cluster all i get back is a black photo.

Am i doing anything wrong?, it looks like it might be clear tonight so id like to give it another shot.

[JohnnyD333]

Hey Mad,

I started out the same way with an afocal setup using a Nikon P90. You can take nice shots of the moon, and if you can record movies with your camera you can stack planets in registax. However, if you try to take pics of the stars with the afocal method you will get the brightest stars at best. Ive been told its an issue with using multiple lenses/mirrors that prevent your camera from picking up very faint light in the EP. You have to go prime focus with a DSLR or CCD if you want that image in your EP on film.

[Madhatter]

Hi JohnnyD, thanks for explaining that to me, thats saved some more frustration and wasted veiwing time tonight (if its clear!) i think my camera can do movies so i will see if i can grab one of saturn.