Sort of astro photos...

[bish]

Hello,

I have been toying with the idea of doing some astro photos. However, I don't want to part with the dob, so it will be a while (to save up). Last night I thought I would have a change from just visual so decided to take a couple of pics with my camera through the eyepiece. The first thing I noticed was that Saturn may look bright in the ep but the camera doesn't  see it that way! ISO 3200, f2.8  60th of a second  through an 8mm ep and you could just about see it on the photo (and still very small at that). Anyway, after about an hour and a half of taking the same pics over and over in the hope they may come out better I called it a night. It seems that astrophotography is time consuming, frustrating and very addictive!  Here is a little montage of some single exposures I took. I've got more to go through so will see if any have come out better.

[stargazerslivingroom]

I think they are great efforts. The Saturn especially good considering it is just a single image.

Most planetary (and even lunar ) imagers usually collect thousands of images by way of recording a video and then stacking them before performing quite complex processing.

You have done extremely well here for your first attempts.

I look forward to following your progress. Well done Bish

Steve

[bish]

Thanks Steve. My back aches a bit from hovering over the ep with my camera, but it was nice to see a recognisable image on the camera screen. I've had to tweak and blow them up in photoshop.

[Leveye]

You could always just unmount the Dob and mount rings on it. Then use either a losmandy or dovetail bar with a tracking mount. Works great. After all it's actually a newt just on a dob base right? Right.

[bish]

You could always just unmount the Dob and mount rings on it. Then use either a losmandy or dovetail bar with a tracking mount. Works great. After all it's actually a newt just on a dob base right? Right.

Hi. Yes, it is something I have thought about. I may be wrong but think it would probably need an EQ6 for imaging. perhaps get away with an HEQ5 for a webcam?  Involves some saving up!

[Pete Presland]

excellent images, especially for a single shot the moon is a cracker!

[bish]

Here's one more. Not much different other than more of a close up of the moon.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/35021571@N00/14360250652/