Taking Pictures?

[Hadescomet]

Being new and all I have a few questions, mainly one, relating to taking pictures.

What exactly will you need?

Do you just need the telescope, and camera (of course the mounts attached etc)?

Do you need to attach your camera to the eyepiece or do you mount it directly to the scope?

If theres a guide somewhere that can point me in the right direction I'd be grateful.

Off topic:

I caught a glimpse of the moon this evening, at around 11pm (its been raining the entire day, and we had a momentary lapse in the clouds, and it suddenly became clear for a half hour! So I jumped on the moment and tarzanned my way outside with my telescope!)

Used a 25mm Plossl and also a 10mm, and it was just... elegant.. to say the least

My first success! Full moon is in about a week so I can't wait!

I still haven't a clue how to view distant planets/nebula yet. Still can't get my focus/eyepiece/other newbie related obstacles out of my way!

[Black Knight]

You don't say what scope, mount and camera you have so I can only give a generalized reply.

If you are using a DSLR, at the very least you will need a T-ring to fit your DSLR. You can then attach either a 1.25" or 2" T mount adapter to it which will then allow you to place the camera into the eyepiece holder. Some manufacturers (I know Skywatcher do this on some of their scopes), allow you to attach the camera + T-ring directly to the focuser using a Direct Camera connection. This is what is referred to as prime focus photography.

There is also eyepiece projection photography which allows you to connect a camera directly to an eyepiece using a suitable adapter. Don't know much else about that I'm afraid.

If your are using a compact camera, you could either hold your camera up to the eyepiece or use a digital camera adapter. This is known as afocal photography.

Webcams with a suitable nosepiece can be inserted straight into the eyepiece holder. To capture webcam images you will obviously need suitable software to both capture and stack your images, many of which are free to use.

You would also need a shutter release cable (at the very least) for a DSLR to minimize vibration during exposures, or suitable software to control the camera. For example, for Canon DSLRs there is APT and BackyardEOS, or indeed the the EOS utilities.

For long exposure imaging, you would need a mount which will track your target. Without using a guide scope and guide camera, and with very good polar alignment you could get up to 120 second exposures, but 30 seconds may be more likely. For webcam imaging of the moon and planets you may be able to get by without a tracking mount.

Hope this helps.

[Nova]

Hi and welcome to the site. Black Knight has pretty much covered what you will need to get going but is worth mentioning that if you decide to go down the webcam photography route they are mainly geared up to lunar and planetary imaging. You can modify them for deep sky imaging but in there "normal" state they do not have the ability for long exposures in the same way that a DSLR has. Here is a fantastic primer that will give give you plenty to think about with regards to webcam imaging

http://stargazerslounge.com/primers-tutorials/40665-primer-planetary-imaging-toucam.html

Im fairly new to this hobby and have spent more time reading and learning than I have observing. Make use of the cloudy weather and google every question you have!! My favorite pass time when its cloudy http://www.stellarium.org/ This will show you where everything is in real time to help you find planets and DSO's

[Black Knight]

Incidentally, for taking pictures of the moon, you will probably achieve better results when the moon is not full. Simply because the shadows you get with a crescent or half moon allow those features to stand out more.

Oh, and welcome to the forum!

[Hadescomet]

Sorry. I have the saxon 1021, and a sony a390 (but will be upgrading in a few months).

Thanks for the information. Pretty much gives me an example of what I'll need.

I'll look into the tracking system a bit later. I basically just want to gather everything I'll need first, so when I have spent enough experience points (lol) on Astronomy, I can just simply throw everything needed on. It's kind of like having Excalibur, but not being able to use it til I'm "ready!"

Cheers for that Black Knight and Nova.

Note: I was looking up the CCD stuff a while back. I reckon that would be my best option in the future. For now I'll probably just use DSLR til I level up

[brantuk]

Planets are bright so a webcam is the preferred choice of camera cos you can film it and gather a lot of short exposures very rapidly. That way you catch the odd moments of atmospheric clarity to get acceptable frames. They can then be aligned and stacked using "registax" - dump the poor frames - and end up with a good image for tarting up in "photoshop" or "gimp" etc.

DSO's are dim and distant, so to capture their light you'll require longer exposures from a dslr or ccd camera. To get long exposures you need to track the object on a polar aligned equatorial mount to keep the image steady on the chip while the shutter is open (5, 10, or 15 mins exposure is not uncommon). Guiding requires a second scope and camera. Align/stack using "DSS" - there's lots of free (or dirt cheap) capture software around.

Hope that helps

[JamesM]

Can I make a suggestion that you get hold of Steve Richards "Making Every Photon Count" (FLO £19.95) which will tell you what you need and why you need it to get the type of images that will help you match your expectations. Imaging is not just about collecting the 'data' its also about the data processing. Some of the best programs are free but there are plenty of others that are not and so having an over view from a book such as that detailed above will help you understand what you are about to let yourself in for. They don't call it the 'dark side' for nothing.

James