I had a go at photography, but...

[MrPloppy]

I have an old camera which sort of looks like a DSLR, but isn't. With my 200P came a connector which I assume is for larger eyepieces or something. My camera almost fits this and was only out by some 5mm. A friend of mine has a lathe, and he kindly scored out some of the connector so that my camera can slot in it.

To be honest, I assumed it would just "work". With a bit of focus work and zooming, I assumed it would show not a brilliant image, but something. Instead, all I got was an image of the secondary mirror and the spider that holds it, along with a very blurred background image.

What am I doing wrong?!

Thanks

MrP.

[malc-c]

Not a lot to go on as you say it "looks like a dslr but isn't" - can you remove the lens from the camera like you can with a SLR camera ? Fitting an attachment directly to a lens and then try and focus on the image produced by an eyepiece won't work unless you can find the sweet spot and set the camera at this point.

You would be better off searching the classified section in your local paper, or the trade-in section of a local camera shop for a Canon body such as the D350, D400 etc - should be able to pick up a full kit with lens for around £250, less for body only.

[themos]

It looks like you are doing "afocal" photography. You need to play with the telescope's focuser and the camera's focus control (hoping it has manual control) until you get an image of the sky and not your telescope. Try playing with it in daytime and get something distant to focus.

[MrPloppy]

Thanks chaps. The camera is a FujiFilm Finepix S5700 , and while it sort of looks like a DSLR, it certainly isn't. The lens cannot be unscrewed, and I can't add any filters or whatnot to it.

It was just a "quick go" with something I already had. I guess I didn't find the sweet spot (thinking the manual focus capabilities would do this for me...!)

[themos]

Try setting manual focus to infinity first, and then adjust your telescope's focuser. The Moon will make a good target in the days ahead.

[Atlas]

If you can come up with a homemade attachment to secure the camera it may actually be a good camera. It's a 7.5mp CCD sensor, certainly a nice and sensitive chip. Using a barlow would rid you of your focus problem. (Which is why your seeing spider vanes in your images.) You just need to create an adapter to secure your camera to your scope.