Taking a picture of the moon, t mounted Nikon D5000

[Denni]

Evening all,

I hope you are all having a good weekend so far

I'm still using my friends telescope which has a thread already built into it so I bought a t mount for my Nikon D5000 DSLR. Now I'll start but saying I know less about photography than I know about astronomy so not a good start I grant you!

Anyway, I've got as far as focusing in on the moon with the scope then attaching the camera which then comes up with "no lens attached". Now I realise to someone with camera know how it would be an easy fix but I have no idea how my camera works so I've just been playing with the settings to no avail.

I've looked on the net but can't seem to find any advice so can anyone please help me and let me know what I should be doing and what I should put my camera setting son? (This may take me a while as I have no idea...)

I just don't want to miss out on the clear skies as the moon looks amazing.

Thanks in advance and a virtual beer to all helpers

Elsie

[Leveye]

I get that same message with my Canon and can just put the camera into either full manual or bulb mode and half press the shutter button and it goes away.

[davefrance]

Leveye is correct, just put in manual mode and the message will disappear. You will need to set the speed/ISO combination to get the correct exposure, If you have Live View you can get a rough idea of how bright the image will be but a bit of trial and error will be required.

[Leveye]

Try ISO 100 and 1/250th to start with.

[JemC]

Hi Denni

Try having a good look around the net. Google/amazon  as there are adapters knocking about, I know they do them for Canon as I use one with my 50mm carl zeiss lens so would assume they make them for Nikon as well, they do work, mine even has AF confirm chip glued to it which is even better,

Regards

JemC

[Denni]

Hi all again!

Right, worked out how to change some of the camera settings, so something else I've learnt today :0)

Started off at 100 and ended up dialling it all the way up to 4000 and came up with this:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f183/Atholl-de-Saint-Croix/DSC_0391_zps98687b70.jpg

Now not too shabby and actually easier than I thought. I'm guessing there are other thing on my camera I can use to make the photos better and of course I realise a lot of the images are multiples and made to look better with software, something else I'll try and get to grips with.

Any more advice? Am going to zoom in on that one and try to sharpen it up, no idea how to do that but I'm sure my Mac must have something to help me!

Thanks again for all your advice,

Elsie

[guiseppe]

You will have a much easier time focusing if you put the camera on the scope first. Do that, turn on live view and focus away. Now I'm a Canon user so I can't tell you how to do that on a Nikon, but it should be pretty straightforward. As the moon is incredibly bright, I usually set the camera on ISO 100, and the exposure to about 1/25-1/50. And since the brightness of the moon changes depending on how much of it is lit, you'll have to experiment with the settings, but those seem to work the best for me.

The ISO settings determine how sensitive your camera's sensor is to light. The shutterspeed settings determine for how long the camera is going to let in or capture that light. The higher the ISO number, the more sensitive it is. And the higher the number on your shutterspeed, the shorter or faster the capture of said light. I could go in to aperture settings as well, but since you're using it on your friend's scope, it doesn't matter. Hope this will help and good luck .

[guiseppe]

Oh, forgot the last part of your post. You'll want to take the best image you possibly can before you think about enhancing it in post-processing software. Zooming in to an image (as in further than the original resolution) just gives you a blurry smudge. That said, software can and should be used for your images.

[wxsatuser]

Try ISO 100 and 1/250th to start with.

Thats what I did last night.

Setup as my sig, stack of six stills.

[Denni]

Hi folks,

Many thanks again for all the replies.

I've only just figured out how to change the ISO settings on my camera and the lowest they go is down to 200 but there is also a Lo0.3 below that?

Anyway, I also didn't know what you meant by 1/250th so again, figured that out so my camera is on my scope, on manual, ISO 200 and minimum shutter speed at 1/250th. Moon huge at the mo but can't get a decent pic through the trees so will wait until later.

Blue Straggler, what do you mean by six stills? Do you mean you have taken six pictures and then somehow manipulated them together? Cracking photograph by the way, that is exactly the kind of result I'm looking for

All the best, Elsie

[Denni]

Right, forget my last question about the ISO being only as low as 200, I've just figured out that the LO settings are basically a short cut for the lower ISO settings. Told you I was a photo/astro muppet

[wxsatuser]

Hi folks,

Many thanks again for all the replies.

I've only just figured out how to change the ISO settings on my camera and the lowest they go is down to 200 but there is also a Lo0.3 below that?

Anyway, I also didn't know what you meant by 1/250th so again, figured that out so my camera is on my scope, on manual, ISO 200 and minimum shutter speed at 1/250th. Moon huge at the mo but can't get a decent pic through the trees so will wait until later.

Blue Straggler, what do you mean by six stills? Do you mean you have taken six pictures and then somehow manipulated them together? Cracking photograph by the way, that is exactly the kind of result I'm looking for

All the best, Elsie

Just six frames one after another with a few seconds between each.

RAW processed and cropped in PIPP and stacked in Registax, detail bought out with wavelets.

Most of us would use video, shoot a few thousand frames and stack them.

This way it's easier to overcome seeing, taking single shots you have to be very lucky to get one clear one.

Here is an image of over two thousand frames of video stacked in Autostakkert detail bought out in Registax wavelets.

This is the area around the crater Clavius.

[proflight2000]

Shutter speeds are the main crux IMO, the moon can be a bright object, so over opening the shutter will give you a bright blob, too fast and you get it too dark. In effect its play time as such, in the manual mode use the lowest speed for the shutter, take a snap then look, not what you want, then use the next speed... keep doing this until you have an exposure you are happy with and make a note of it. Once you get the shutter speed sorted you can then get more technical with all the other goodies a camera has to offer. The bulb function in my mind is when you want a long exposure, not reallt useful for the moon, but great for the stars on a tracking telescope.