Imaging with a compact digital camera

[skippyinspace]

I have an ancient Fuji Finepix digital camera and have in the past taken some good shots of the moon through the eyepiece of my 8" Newtonian.

My question is if I was to buy a mount for it would I be able to take Deep sky shots?

Thanks

Ian 

[Langy]

DSO will require lengthy exposure times, so unless you have a very good tracking system then you probably will not get much.

The only way to maybe catch more detail is multiple shots, but again through the telescope will limit the exposure time you can take. For example my DSLR with a 300mm lens on a tripod the maximum exposure is 1.25 seconds before any trailing stars, therefore through a scope will be a lot lower.

If you don't have tracking on the telescope try sticking the camera on a tripod, it's a lot of messing about to line it all up but at least you can have a play as to how far you can go.

[Leveye]

Certain Canon PnS cameras can be hacked with CHDK and give you 30 minutes instead of say the standard 15 seconds or so.They have remote control for a bulb mode as well. The G series by Canon are great because they are CCD, shoot in RAW and shoot video as well. 30FPS in HD great for planetary work. But then you're into almost a new dedicated CCD price range. A used canon G11 can be found for under 250.

[Langy]

Certain Canon PnS cameras can be hacked with CHDK and give you 30 minutes instead of say the standard 15 seconds or so.They have remote control for a bulb mode as well. The G series by Canon are great because they are CCD, shoot in RAW and shoot video as well. 30FPS in HD great for planetary work. But then you're into almost a new dedicated CCD price range. A used canon G11 can be found for under 250.

I don't want to sound rule but the OP did ask the question if he could use his ancient Fuji Finepix digital camera for DSO.

[rowan46]

yes you can but not great shots if you have bulb mode you should get 30 sec exposures but these shots will be very noisy  and not that great. so the answer is yes you can but I doubt you will stay delighted with your shots for long.

[glappkaeft]

It might help if you can be more specific on the model. There are 15 different series of Fuji Finepix cameras and many more different models.

[skippyinspace]

Fine Pix F30, 6.3 megapixel , iso 100 to 1600

Does video as well!

[glappkaeft]

I downloaded the manual for the F30 and looked at the specs. I got both good and bad news.

The good news is that the F30 had very good low light performance for a compact cameras when it was introduced in 2006. It won't come close to a newish DSLR but then again no compact camera will. The bad news is that the camera is limited to a shutter speed of only 3 seconds and there is no bulb mode. 3 seconds is on the short side, I would prefer at least 15 seconds if not longer. AFAICT there is no manual focus mode which often is a show stopper. You will also not be able to do prime focus photography since the F-series lens is fixed.

You'd probably be happier with a second hand DSLR like a Canon 1000D/1100D but if you got a tripod or can prop it up against something try to take an wide angle image next time you get a spot of clear weather. See if you can focus on infinity, lock the focus and use the self-timer to take a couple of 3 second images. That should tell you a little what to expect from your camera.

/Patrik

[skippyinspace]

Thanks for that, I do have access to a Nikon D3100 but its my wifes work camera so Im not going to be able to mod it which is why I asked about the finepix and cash is just none existent for any new purchases

[Langy]

You will not need to mod the Nikon. You will need a T-Ring and adapter for the camera.

Basically you insert the T-Ring in the EP holder and thread on an adapter to that which has the camera lens mount on it. Remove the lens from camera and attach to the adapter.

However the best I've found is that using the camera this way may be limited to lunar images.

You could always piggyback the scope to go a different way.