taking pic on sky watcker 127 mak help

[usher4566]

Hi ive just ordered a sky max 127 i was just woundering is there any way of taking pics i dont have a dslr .all ive got is an i pad or panasonic lumix digital cam .or my galaxy s3 dont expect pro jobs

[Cornelius Varley]

You can take pictures of the moon using either your Lumix or Galaxy S3 through an eyepiece. Focus the telescope and then hold the camera over the eyepiece and adjust the zoom to crop the image to suit. You should be able to get quite good results using this method. To make it easier you can hold the Lumix in position using a bracket such as this one http://www.firstligh...ra-adapter.html . I took this image of the moon using this method with a Samsung WB700 digital compact.

[kevthered]

Hi.

If you have a look at my Moon album, you'll see a pic I took a couple of years ago using my mobile phone held up to a 32mm eyepiece. The scope I was using was a Celestron 6" Schmidt Cassegrain, so slighter larger than your Skymax 127mm, but it should give you an idea of what can be achieved with a bit of patience.

I've now got a Philips SPC900NC webcam for imaging, but my results to date haven't been good. I'm hoping to improve on them over the coming months with my new scope, a Skymax 127mm !!

Cheers

Kev

[usher4566]

Thats the same scope as ive just bought kev and varley amaxing picture

[ronin]

A Mak is suited to moon and planets for imaging, it is not suited to DSO images as these need a longer duration then the Mak is able to handle. The Mak is both a long focal length and on an Alt/Az mount. Also putting a DSLR on the Skymax will unbalance it.

The moon you could get shots of with a camera and whatever zoom lens (300mm) as the moon is actually bright enough for a shot. Planets you put a webcam on and record an avi (movie) of them. Then stack the best in something like registax.

One concern is there are basically 3 planets - Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, then what?

Owing to it's brightness you might get something via a webcam from Orion, possibly worth a try just not sure.