Need help using my camera.

[Mr Moff]

I've been trying to capture a few planets with my camera but at best I just get either a cloudy blob or nothing at all.

I was just after some advise really.I was given a link the other day but after reading it I'm even more confused.

So I just need a little guidance on what settings to use on the camera?

I know I'll really need an slr but I have seen lots of nice pictures on here taken from phones or compact cameras.

So here goes,

Where do I actually stick the camera?

Do I just hold it to the eyepiece?

Do I remove the eyepiece and point the camera down into the hole?

Do I use any zoom on the camera?

What do I do with the exposure?I don't even know what the exposure does.

What is the iso setting about?

The camera I'm using is the panasonic lumix TZ18 and I usually leave it on the i auto setting because I don't know what most of the settings are.

The scope I'm using is the SW 200p with the eq5 mount and a selection of x-cel lx eyepieces.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Danny.

[Cornelius Varley]

You need to hold the camera close to the eyepiece to photograph using a compact camera. I use one of these First Light Optics - Skywatcher Universal Camera Adapter to hold my Samsung WB700. Photographing planets this way (afocal photography) will be hard. The target (a planet) is quite small in an eyepiece even at high magnifications so it's going to be tricky.

Choose an eyepiece that has a large exit pupil, your x-cels should work well for this because they have quite large exit pupils, even the short focal length ones. Focus the telescope throough the eyepiece then put he camera to the eyepiece, adjusting the zoom to improve the size of the target if you can. This is where using a mount such as the one I mentioned helps, the camera is supported whilst you adjust the camera settings. Auto exposure is probably not a good idea for imaging planets because there will be a lot of black in the photo which will confuse the camera's exposure meter and you will get an overexposed image.

Peter

[Mr Moff]

Thank you Peter.I've just ordered that adaptor from FLO.

So should I adjust the exposure to be on its lowest setting then?

Would this help it pick out the stars from all the black?

Danny.

[ronnietucker]

I'm certainly no expert, but I did some experimenting with my digital cameras ISO and exposure settings. This is my totally unscientific experiment results which show how ISO and exposure affect what you do/don't get in the resulting photo:

Astro-Ron 2000: Totally Unscientific Photography Experiment

[Tribal-Wolf]

I was looking at these but not sure if they would be any good

[Mr Moff]

Ronnie that's a great little test you did there.Love the title too.

So on my tz18 when I go into the exposure mode the only adjustment I can do looks like this,

-2 -1 0 +1 +2

How do I set this menu to make it work?

Danny.