Will my humble Camcorder Really Record the Stars?

[Dormouse]

When attached to a telescope? The final question I guess before starting the indepth research (if at all). I can get pretty good shots of the moon (in my mind) and I can get a blurry Venus so I guess they will improve when seen through a scope but can I realistically expect to get (for example) the milky way, the Andromeda galaxy, stars; afterall the moon is pretty bright and the others aren't by comparison? Or will I need other equipment?

Hoping for a positive answer!

DM

[assasincz]

Deep sky objects require long exposure times - so driven, sturdy, heavy and well polar-alligned equatorial mount would be in order, as well as a camera (DSLR preferably, even modified) capable of doing long exposures. I am given to understand that apart from polar-alligned mount, a pointer scope that tracks a bright star near the object you want to take pictures of helps immensly. So answer to your question depends greatly on what sort of scope and mount do you have Plus, I am not into deep-sky astrophotography, so I reckon, there are more qualified people here to answer your question.

[todd8137]

not really sure what you mean,but you can buy a digi scope ep and see if you can film threw the ep? tracking with a mount may be you down fall,not sure if it would video the things you want i have tried with a olf sony hi8 vid cam just could not get the thing close enough to take video,say in that i have seen videos of this nature on youtube were people have held there video cam to the eye piece and the video shows the great orion neb,i failed whilst try in to do that

you may have better luck than me

[rowan46]

planetary and lunar photography use a different method to get good results, than deep space objects. For the moon and planets you stack lots of short exposures taken from a webcam, these can be taken from an alt/az mount. For wide field and dso's you need a tracking eq mount and long exposures stacked. So the type of mount and it's quality determine the quality of your photo's.

[Dormouse]

Thank you. Nothing purchased yet so no errors yet! As this is my first foray into astrophotography and I have a very modest budget I shall tentatively discount deep space for the time being.

Must haves on wish list so far are Goto computerised scope with alt/az mount and ability to attach camcorder to eyepiece.

I was aware of the need for stacked shots before I started and I know the software is free so that's in the back of my mind right now. My camcorder can only run for about an hour and a half so I know long exposures are out until I can buy more powerful batteries (or whatever).

So I guess the answer is yes, my dear ol' camcorder should be able to get some decent images of something other than the moon and I guess none of you can confirm whether I could get the milky way etc as I can offer no specs to go by.

Well I'm going to go for it, aiming for the largest aperture I can get and even if I'm not satisfied at the end, I will have learned a great deal!

Many thanks

DM

[Peter Drew]

Provided your proposed camcorder can be coupled up to the telescope you should be able to film pleasing video of the Moon and the brighter planets. Unless the camera has a very low light potential you will struggle to film stars and certainly nebulae. It's not a case of how long the camcorder will run for that determines the exposure, the usual performance is 30 frames per second, not enough to show faint objects. If the camera has a frame integration feature you might have chance but the video cameras used for faint objects are usually far more sensitive, a modified webcam, as already mentioned, is probably the cheapest route.

[malc-c]

DM I don't think you have grasped the concept of long exposure. It's not the time you can run the camera, it's the time you can leave the shutter open to gather more light. The only way you can do this is with dedicated astro CCD cameras or digital cameras with the bulb setting (typically this is found on digital SLR cameras).

The other thing to consider is weight. By the time you factor the weight of any bracket plus the camcorder it will put a lot of strain on your proposed alt/az mount (maybe to the point of stalling the motors). A £30 webcam will give you better results