Astrophotography with a Dob?

[Dangermouse]

Well it was bound to happen after doing my research and buying my 8" Dob I would like to try my hand at getting some pictures. I know a scope on a Dob mount is not really suited to this but it is all my budget will allow at the moment so I am in no way upset with my scope choice. But I have seen some fantastic pictures of the moon taken with non DSLR digital cameras and without tracking. Does anyone have any advice for taking good afocal pictures. My camera at the moment would be a 3.3 megapixel Olymus C-3000 ( not DSLR) or a conventional non digital Pentax SLR (which has not been used for far too long)

[blinky]

Get one of the afocul adapters that let you mount the digicam on the EP. You should be able to get decent images of the moon this way.

[Dangermouse]

Well it was a clear night last night so I had the scope out anyway and held my digital camera to the eye piece and took some pics of the moon and a couple ofthem came out quite well especially as this was only a test run I was not as careful as I could have been. The one thing I did forget for the first picture was to turn the flash off!!!I will try to post a pic when I get home tonight.

[themos]

Well it was a clear night last night so I had the scope out anyway and held my digital camera to the eye piece and took some pics of the moon and a couple ofthem came out quite well especially as this was only a test run I was not as careful as I could have been. The one thing I did forget for the first picture was to turn the flash off!!!I will try to post a pic when I get home tonight.

You too?! Yes, flash off, focus to infinity, you can try any zoom function, put it in Manual mode so you can select different apertures and exposure times. Also, if you got a timed delayed shutter, use it. I set mine to 2 secs delay and then take 10 pictures. I figured that at SOME point I was BOUND to be pointing it at the right place. Now, all I need is some cloudy weather to have a look at the results

[BWBlackett]

I too want to connect my camera (Panasonic FZ5) to my Dob. The question is how?

Has anyone used one of these?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/F-ADAPTER-for-Panasonic-DMC-FZ50-FZ30-FZ5-FZ4-FZ3-NEW_W0QQitemZ230114608855QQihZ013QQcategoryZ30070QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

Would it be suitable for connecting a camera to a telescope ?

Brian.

[barkis]

I too want to connect my camera (Panasonic FZ5) to my Dob. The question is how?

Has anyone used one of these?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/F-ADAPTER-for-Panasonic-DMC-FZ50-FZ30-FZ5-FZ4-FZ3-NEW_W0QQitemZ230114608855QQihZ013QQcategoryZ30070QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

Would it be suitable for connecting a camera to a telescope ?

Brian.

I am not sure I would want to use that device. It seems as though it relies on friction to hold things in place. If that is the case I would not trust it to hold a camera of mine. Of course I may be wrong, in which case I apologize to the manufacturer.

Ron.

[regulus]

Went to an informal meeting of Ilkeston & district Astro Soc. on wednesday, saw a slide show from a member of the Saturn / lunar occultation that happened a couple of months ago, also the recent lunar eclipse. The photo's were taken with an old Practica manual focus SLR on Fujichrome 200 transparency film through a modified old 60mm refractor. I was astounded!! Better eclipse images than I got through my Nikon D200 digi. SLR & a 600mm Lens