Comet Garradd through iTelescope

[Astroegg]

I very poorly tried to capture Comet Garradd with my Celestron CPC1100 at a rediculously early hour one night. The conditions were pretty good (nice, clear and dark) and I found the comet through the scope nestling quite close to M92, however when I snapped away with a DSLR (Nikon D40, ISO 1600, Exp 1-2mins) I captured nothing!

Slightly discouraged, but pleased I found the comet anyway, I tried again another night but again just got black images! I can easily photograph the Moon, Jupiter and even the Orion Nebula in a beautiful colour image but not this comet. I am told my scope is just not fast enough - the CPC1100 is an F/10 scope. I have a focal reducer that makes the scope an F/6.3 but am advised this too is not really enough. Longer exposures could help, however I am using the CPCs Alt-Az mount so I would need an equatorial wedge (and probably a light pollution filter...). ££££s!

I have an EQ1 tabletop mount that I can mount my Nikon D40 to and just try that... however this camera only has a 15-55mm lens. I suppose I could buy a more powerful zoom lens such as a 200mm or 400mm. What do you guys suggest? Money well spent?

I could also adopt a different approach and use somebody else's telescope... I have been looking at iTelescope, although I wouldn't have much of a clue how best to capture the comet using this system. iTelescope does not appear cheap - but it may be less expensive than buying more equipment for myself.

I really want to capture this comet and tick another astronomy event off my wishlist. Any help much appreciated...

Regards,

Egg

[SamAndrew]

if you can see it visually, then you should easily pick it up in a short exposure with the camera.

Is the image totally black ? or are there some starts there ?

[Astroegg]

Hi Sam,

The images were all very black, no stars at all. Strangely, with the longest exposure (2 minutes) I did manage to capture some very out of focus faint objects, but I assume these to be stray light relections or something - I focused the telescope through the camera viewfinder with a Bahtinov mask (then removed it before trying to photograph the comet once I'd taken at least one snap with it still on!!!)

Definitely no stars though, and when I photographed the Orion Nebula, the camera captured quite a few stars, so I was quite surprised.

Should I try afocal?

[Astroegg]

I took another snap last night whilst playing with the settings on the Nikon D40. One photo revealed a blurry smudge, and I think I have managed to capture something at last. (Quite likely a street light!)

It appears to be a bit like the object I could see through the eyepice, however it is zoomed in a lot more. The field of view in the photo is considerably reduced compared to the eyepiece view I had. Should I be adding a 40mm T2 extension or something to distance the camera CCD from the eyepiece? I don't have my eye so far away from the eyepiece when I look though. What could be wrong here?

I must admit I am really struggling with this camera. The focusing has to be done through the tiny viewfinder (there is no preview on the LCD screen on the back). Also once I remove the normal camera lens to attach the camera directly to the telescope eyepiece, the settings and features seem to disappear and limit me to basic alterations.

[Astroegg]

The images are from one original RAW photo converted to JPG to display on this website and reduced 50% in size. The second image has been processed with Irfan View software, running the "auto adjust colo(u)rs" feature. - It shows there is more data there but I am not processing it very nicely.

The camera settings reveal maybe a bit of light pollution, but it was a short exposure (30 seconds) and the ISO was set high 1600.

- Thought I'd better add too that I see this through the eyepice as a white fuzzy. There is no colour in it (well possibly slightly green but definitely not red!)