Question on suitability of equipment for astrophotography

[M4lcs67]

Hi all.

Was outside last night with my scope and had a great time with it.

However I had an idea to try and take a couple of photographs by putting my compact digital camera over the eyepiece and getting some shots of Jupiter and it's moons. (I originally saw it done on Stargazing Live earlier in the year and thought that was a clever idea). Obviously the results were not very good, so was asking if there are any camera mounts out there that would do in order to steady the camera or am I totally barking up the wrong tree????

I do know that the equipment is woefully inadequate for the job, but don't want to be spending a lot of money in the short term if there is a better way of getting a half decent result with what I already have.

Thanks Peeps:)

[Odd Dob]

For planetary photography, you're better off recording short videos (webcam or similar) and then processing it to a single picture with Registax.

[jgs001]

Malc, Head over to Buy Cheap Astronomy at Morgan Computers and grab one of those webcams. That will work nicely on the 127 Mak. It's about the same cost as a mount for fitting a compact camera to an eyepiece, but I'm sure you'll get better results.

[JamesM]

Webcam on planets and the moon is the way to go to get good results. For Deep Sky Object (DSO's) then tracking etc will be an issue. If imaging is your future plan, why not get hold of Steve Richards "Making Every Photon Count" (FLO £19.95) that will provide all you need to need to know.

Stargazing Live was a little mischievous in demonstrating the relative ease of widefield imaging (camera/tripod with timed exposure) and then illustrating some of the results with images of deep sky objects which wrongly gave the impression that all objects are easy to capture- they're not.

Clear skies

James

[brantuk]

One of these will hold any camera with a standard thread on the bottom, steady in the eyepiece for you:

First Light Optics - Skywatcher Universal Camera Adapter

A webcam's also a good idea

[rowan46]

this may help with a methodology for digiscoping

Afocal Astrophotography