What settings?

[Ganymede12]

I have been using my Fujifilm finepix Z5 for astrophotography for about a month and I am getting the hang of using it, but what settings would you recommend for imagin:

The Sun?

DSO's?

Planets?

The Moon?

Stars?

(all through a telescope)

On my camera I can turn the flash on and off, adjust the LED brightness for 11 different settings (-5 to +5), adjust face tracking,, turn high speed shooting on or off, adjust the shooting mode for settings like "night","Text","party","museum" and anti-blur" (there are others). Those are most of the settings I can chose between but there maybe others.

I know It may be hard for you to know exactly how my camera performs (though there are images in my gallery) so I just want a rough idea on the settings I should use.

[Star Gazer]

Hi Ganymede12

Trial and error is my general policy, but if you have a subject in mind just search for pictures of it in these and other forums on the web. Most people posting pictures usually say what parameters where used to capture their images.

One thing to note is that your Alt Az mount will be a problem in getting round stars and that's assuming it is able to track (with motors). A German equatorial mount or GEM rather than an Alt Az is what you need.

Also your scopes focal length will mean you will not be able to take pictures of all but the brightest objects without a tracking mount. For instance people using DSLR will take exposures somewhere in the region of 120 secs - 400 secs, not sure if you can do this with a Z5. I'm guessing but you might be able to take 10 second images; this is very limiting fr DSOs.

[Ganymede12]

I'm thinking of imaging the brighter objects. I know I can get Saturn In my camera so I'm trying to image that. I have taken a few images of the moon and sun so I know that I can take some good images.

[todd8137]

Does it not a the manual setting on he cam ?

[notaclue]

From BBC Stargazing which was on BBC2 this year. They say set your camera to manual. Appature set to 5.6. ISO quality 800 and a 30 second timer.

[jgs001]

most of the imaging settings you'll see defined are referring to dSLR settings, rather than point and shoot. That doesn't mean you can't use a point and shoot mind you, just that you'll need to work out the limits of the camera.

From what I can find...

It has a “manual” mode, which allows the user to adjust ISO, exposure compensation, white balance and AF mode.

You should be able to do some afocal imaging of the moon and sun (but only if you have the correct and appropriate filters, such as the Baader AstroSolar filter). If you have a Video mode, you could try that for the planets, but it's gonna be hard afocal (maybe look at getting a camera stage for mounting it to an eyepiece ?). For stars and DSO's, you're probably better off trying to use it on a camera tripod, and see how you get on. Take a look at and adjust for your camera, this was written with dSLR users in mind, but the principles work for bridge and P&S too (I used to do this with a bridge camera).

[Ganymede12]

I'm not looking for new kit. I am just asking if anyone has any ideas as to what settings I should put my camera on to get good images. If you can't tell without actually seeing my camera or if I have to find the settings myself through trial and error then that's fine.