Digi Camera holder/tripod help.

[matsey]

I've also got the webcam setup (the exact one brantuk linked to) and have to agree using the stacked images gives some pretty amazing results.. I've used it so far on the moon and jupiter and have been incredibly pleased with the quality of the final images.

I think what mainly appeals to me about the adapter though is not being restricted to the very high magnification of the ~6mm equivalent the webcam gives you.. Saturday night I fully intended to take short avi's of different sections of the moon and create a mosaic to end up with one full image, but it seems I just don't have the patience to methodically take all the shots necessary, and gave up about 5 or 6 videos in Pretty poor effort really, considering some people can spend hours/days getting some quite incredible images, I guess I may always be more of an observer than an imager...

In any case, a little skeptical though I am of whether I can get anything even half decent with my digital camera/scope/adapter setup, I'm going to give it a go, and have just placed an order with FLO.

Scotty... not sure if you've ordered already but if you haven't and want to hold off while I play guinea pig, am happy to do so.. as soon as I get the chance to use it I'll post up some images of what I manage to take. I'll have a go as well with using the video mode, see if I can use that to stack for a better image in a similar way to what I'd do with the webcam. Also... having spoken to FLO, they actually recommended the other adapter as a better fit for the camera we have... this one: First Light Optics - Baader Microstage Clickstop digital camera adapter

So.... could well end up being a waste of £39, but nothing ventured and all that ..

[scottydog]

I've also got the webcam setup (the exact one brantuk linked to) and have to agree using the stacked images gives some pretty amazing results.. I've used it so far on the moon and jupiter and have been incredibly pleased with the quality of the final images.

I think what mainly appeals to me about the adapter though is not being restricted to the very high magnification of the ~6mm equivalent the webcam gives you.. Saturday night I fully intended to take short avi's of different sections of the moon and create a mosaic to end up with one full image, but it seems I just don't have the patience to methodically take all the shots necessary, and gave up about 5 or 6 videos in Pretty poor effort really, considering some people can spend hours/days getting some quite incredible images, I guess I may always be more of an observer than an imager...

In any case, a little skeptical though I am of whether I can get anything even half decent with my digital camera/scope/adapter setup, I'm going to give it a go, and have just placed an order with FLO.

Scotty... not sure if you've ordered already but if you haven't and want to hold off while I play guinea pig, am happy to do so.. as soon as I get the chance to use it I'll post up some images of what I manage to take. I'll have a go as well with using the video mode, see if I can use that to stack for a better image in a similar way to what I'd do with the webcam. Also... having spoken to FLO, they actually recommended the other adapter as a better fit for the camera we have... this one: First Light Optics - Baader Microstage Clickstop digital camera adapter

So.... could well end up being a waste of £39, but nothing ventured and all that ..

That is very true Matsey..nothin' ventured etc. & how jolly decent of you to play guinea pig good luck & clear skies ( last night was & tonight's looking the same here, also moon is waning!)

When you say you'll have a try using the video mode, do you mean with the TZ7 in 'AVCHD' mode? Be interested to know how that comes out

[matsey]

Apologies that it's taken me quite a while to do an official report back on the digi-adapter, but it seems it have been something of a cloud magnet and I've only just managed to test it properly ! So here goes a hopefully fairly comprehensive review. Feel free to skip to the "Summary" if you don't want to read all the detail

Setup:

Attaching the adapter to the telescope was pretty easy.. however, what I did find tricky was lining the camera lens up against the eyepiece. Tried it during the day and that was quite easy to do but when it came to setting it up during an observing session it was much more difficult.. the light coming through the eyepiece during the daytime setup made it very easy to see in the live view exactly when the camera was lined up exactly... at night it was virtually impossible, and the only time I was absolutely sure I'd lined the camera up properly was when I was framing the moon, as only then was enough light coming through the eyepiece to be sure everything was lined up OK.

You also have to be careful to look away when the camera is being turned on.. the initial startup screen is incredibly bright and will ruin your dark adapted vision in no time at all.

Using different eyepieces:

I found that the only eyepiece I could actually line up the camera lens with was my 24mm eyepiece, and I think this was because of the large lens area at the eye end (sorry, there must be a technical term for that bit, but I don't know what it is!!). I couldn't get the camera lined up at all at higher mags, even with the 16mm eyepiece - it just seems that the circle on the eyepiece is too small and I couldn't get the "image chip" of the camera close enough to take in the full FOV in the same way as when I hold my eye up to the eyepiece. So I did find I was pretty much restricted to using low power eyepieces, with large eye end lens thingies!

Images:

I tried on four subjects.. the Moon, Jupiter, Albireo (double star in Cygnus) and M13 (globular cluster in Hercules). I'm attaching the three images I managed to get so you can see for yourself.

Moon:

Very easy to line up the camera to the eyepiece. Using the self-timer to prevent camera wobble, and reducing the exposure a bit to compensate for the brightness of the moon, I did manage to get some lovely shots of the moon with the whole thing in view and with a decent level of detail.

Jupiter:

Like the moon, easy to line up in the 24mm eyepiece, however, because of the relatively low magnification, Jupiter just showed as a small white (over exposed I'll admit) disc, with no surface detail at all. Maybe if I'd persevered with a higher mag piece I may have got a better shot.

Albireo:

A bit more difficult to line up the camera, but the stars were just bright enough to see in the live view to know when I was lined up. Using the 30 second starry night exposure was too much, very evident star trails. The 15-second exposure was just about doable, and with the self timer produced just about acceptable results, and you can just about make out the colour in the two stars.

M13:

No chance !!!! The subject was just too dim in the live view to be able to tell that the camera was lined up, I just don't think the camera chip is sensitive enough to pick up the light from this cluster, so I'm not convinced even if I could be sure I was lined up, that I would have got anything. A shame, but this one was an outside chance, so not really surprised.

Summary:

- could only use the low magnification eye piece

- difficult to tell whether the camera is lined up against the eyepiece

- only decent images were of the moon

- but on the positive side, the moon pics were of the whole moon, an advantage it does have over the webcam setup.

- so.. OK for whole shots of the moon, but not really much else

I do have to say though that quite possibly if I'd spent longer fiddling with the set up and had more patience maybe trying to use some of the higher mag pieces, or was a bit more experienced with photography generally, I may well have got better results. So if it has proved anything, it is that definitely at least for now I am more of an observer than an imager.

So, from the experience I've had with this piece of kit, although I'll probably use it occasionally to get some moon shots, that seems to be about it's limit for me. Which would lead me to say out of the two options.. adapter or webcam, then definitely webcam is the way to go for moon/planets, and to just forget about trying to image deep sky objects with my current type of setup (ie, alt/az mount, no DSLR).

Scotty - hope that helps make up your mind, and definitely if you haven't already, I would absolutely recommend getting hold of the Philips webcam kit from Morgans, it's a LOT easier to use than the adapter, and you can get some really good shots with decent detail as well.

Matsey

[scottydog]

Hi Matsey

I must say thank you for your effort in buying and using the Digi adapter I'm sorry you couldn't get any better results that you did though

On your advice I think I'll go down the webcam route at some point.

Any more advice would be really appreciated

Thanks again Matsey :)