Dslr eyepiece help.

[aten67]

First off. Apologies if this query has been posted before. I'm new to this so don't know how to term the search. Was wondering if anyone could answer the following query. I've just acquired a Nikon dslr. And had hoped to try my hand at some sky photography. After purchasing a celestron T &T2 adapter for my celestron powerseeker. I've found that the eyepiece lenses over 4mm protrude from the T adapter. Is this normal or do you have to use a specific size of eyepiece?

[jgs001]

I wouldn't normally use an ep when using a scope for photography. I'd just attach the camera directly to the telescope. Whilst, ep projection (what you describe) can be done, you may find you get the issues your seeing, unless you're using an ep designed for the purpose (for instance Baader Hyperions have a screw thread and fitting adapter for attaching the ep directly to the T-ring).

[aten67]

Thank you for your quick response. Hadn't realied that eyepieces and t adapters didn't go together. I've got a X3 barlow, so i'll try with that. Whilst I'm here. Do you know of a camera light filter that will reduce effect of light pollution? Preferably a cheap one. The ones I've seen cost way too much. Sorry to be a pest. Just a newbie at this.

[jgs001]

You may be able to use a barlow to image the moon, but that's probably about it with an SLR, and for the moon, LP is not an issue, as the exposure times are so short. However these seem to work quite nicely (at least on the lights around my way).

Which powerseeker do you have ? is it on an EQ mount, and do you have drive motors ??

[aten67]

Celestron powerseeker 127eq. I don't have a drive motor. I realise that I won't be able to track objects or have any illusions about taking Hubble like photo (Might be a newbie but I'm not totally thick). Was mainly hoping to get images of the moon. Kudos to you btw. Found that massive mosaic picture of the moon that you posted. Very impressive. No, was primarily hoping to be able to pick out the different colours of the stars. Maybe Jovian moons or Saturn's rings that type of thing. Again. Thanks so much for your help.

Keith

[jgs001]

Thank you Keith... At 1000mm focal length, you'll be able to get some nice detail shots of the moon. You could try with the 3x barlow (I think it'll give you effectively nearer 4x with an SLR) for Jupiter and Saturn, but you're going to have to push up the ISO to a high value to keep the shutter speed down to prevent motion blur. The Jovian moons and possibly the equatorial belts should be doable, but Jupiter is going to appear tiny. I've not tried for Saturn, but you may find it hard to get any detail of the rings. Without tracking, at f/8 and 1000mm (without the barlow), I think the exposure times are going to be too short to be able to get stars to show up, you may find that you can manually track, if you're really careful and get something though.

If you don't have it already, I'd suggest getting a copy of http://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html

[Rihard]

First off. Apologies if this query has been posted before. I'm new to this so don't know how to term the search. Was wondering if anyone could answer the following query. I've just acquired a Nikon dslr. And had hoped to try my hand at some sky photography. After purchasing a celestron T &T2 adapter for my celestron powerseeker. I've found that the eyepiece lenses over 4mm protrude from the T adapter. Is this normal or do you have to use a specific size of eyepiece?

Hi there,

welcome to the Lounge.

as others said you won't need the eyepiece: think as the camera will replace the eyepiece itself.

Without tracking, you'll be better taking snaps of the stars with your Nikon Lenses instead of the scope

Given the F/Ratio of your scope, it's not very suitable for DSO's like stars (especially without tracking).

If you have clear skies without much light pollution, try some wide shots with your lenses, 30 seconds at

ISO800 or 1600, you'll be impressed.

In regards to the planets, well you can do something even without tracking.

What model of Nikon do exactly have? I have a D3100, I added a Barlow between the camera and scope,

and took some videos of Saturn. It was obviously moving in the field of view because I had no tracking, however, the stacking program was able to align the planet and give a stacked and better image.

Taking pictures of the moon will be easy peasy. If you don't have a remote shutter release, use the camera's timer

to avoid shaking. You should get it well at 1/200 / ISO400 or 800 (or higher, just try several shots and see what is the best setting for your equipment / seeing conditions).

Hope this (little) helps.

[aten67]

Thank you for your help. Last night had a clear sky so was able to give some of your tips a go. Done a bit of experimenting with Nikon d3100 and tried with iso & shutter speeds/exposure times, with scope and without. Was able to pick out a few different things to show my expenditure was worth it. I realise that it's going to take a lot of trial and error to get proficient, if ever. One thing was wondri g though, on looking around astronomy sites, read about collimating the scope. For a newbie, is it worth attempting?

[Rihard]

Collimation is very important on Newtonian telescopes, but I read here on SGL that depending on aperture or focal length the effects of out of collimation optics can be more or less evident. I have no idea if it's worth doing it on the model of scope you own, a good guide is AstroBaby's guide (google it).

Despite it takes a lot of patience, it's not rocket science so you should be able to perfection the collimation with the time, if it is needed.

Did you shoot in RAW format?

[aten67]

No. Just used default jpeg. Does RAW make for better shots? Like I said still attempting to find my way round the camera. One thing I hadn't even occurred to me was to shoot video rather than still image. When I read your comment about stacking the images it made so much sense. If you'll indulge me one more newbie question. Do you ever lose the overwhelming urge to buy more and better stuff? It's really getting to be quite disturbing.

keith

[Cornelius Varley]

No. Just used default jpeg. Does RAW make for better shots? Like I said still attempting to find my way round the camera. One thing I hadn't even occurred to me was to shoot video rather than still image. When I read your comment about stacking the images it made so much sense. If you'll indulge me one more newbie question. Do you ever lose the overwhelming urge to buy more and better stuff? It's really getting to be quite disturbing.

keith

A jpeg image loses a great deal of detail, the RAW format ensures that no information is lost so you should always shoot RAW.

"Do you ever lose the overwhelming urge to buy more and better stuff?" Never, is just gets worse.

Peter

[Rihard]

No. Just used default jpeg. Does RAW make for better shots? Like I said still attempting to find my way round the camera. One thing I hadn't even occurred to me was to shoot video rather than still image. When I read your comment about stacking the images it made so much sense. If you'll indulge me one more newbie question. Do you ever lose the overwhelming urge to buy more and better stuff? It's really getting to be quite disturbing.

keith

Jpeg is not recommended. I can only provide some generic / amateur reasons to why the RAW is better:

the RAW format is the actual signal that was recorded by the sensor, without any further modification. Jpeg is actually a compressed format, where a lot of algorithms and psyco-visual process is applied to the that original signal. This will cause a lot of data loss, providing a lightweight file easy to distribute that will still look like the original, however, since a lot of data has been "hijacked" by the process to make the file smaller, you won't be able to really boost or modify the original data signal and to take out the best of it, simply because that full signal isn't there anymore but has been replaced by "something similar and lighter".

So when you shoot in RAW, you will have a wide range of data that can be fine tuned to show the most details possible and that will help increase the image quality, if you use jpeg, well, there is little space to improvement. You can even try some daylight shoots both in RAW and JPEG and try to manipulate them through Lightroom or similar programs.

Stacking the videoframes seems to be the best way to record planetary images with a lot of details. Nikon cameras will shoot in MOV so you will need a program to convert from MOV to AVI since most of stacking programs (see Registax) won't support MOV files. Most people prefer webcams that can shoot high FPS videos and show bigger images, but with a barlow you can actually image with a DSLR camera (as I have attempted). The Nikon will also let you compensate the video exposure level (useful if a planet is either too bright or too dim).

About the latest question: no there is no way to get rid of the overwhelming need of adding up more / better equipment. And there is no rehab centres actually able to rid us from this sorcery But you can actually replace the urge with another similar urge. I've actually lost the urge to buy cool Astro stuff when I was about 13 / 14 but it was unfortunately replaced by the urge of purchasing tons of random computer hardware, software, cameras, consoles, retro-consoles and nice electronic gadgetry. After more then 10 years I've got both urges together :S so no, there is no remedy

[aten67]

Thanks to you all for your help. It's really good to know that as a forum you are willing to answer the noob. Nothing for it now but to try and try...if only this bl**dy weather would get a grip.