Shooting through the eyepeice

[pastiche]

I have seen some of the photographs people have taken through the eyepiece on their mobile phones.

How do they do that? Try as I might, I don't seem to be able to line up the image through the phone!

Any tips?

[Laurie61]

Hi, this would help or something similar  Afocal Adapter For I Phone -  http://www.scsastro.co.uk/catalogue/orion-steadypix-telescope-afocal-adapter-for-iphone-5303.htm  A self timer function will also help let the scope settle before the shutter fires.

[Charic]

.........having a wide enough EP to counter-act the rapid transit of your target crossing the field of view, and possibly adjusting the zoom settings on the mobile phone. i'm sure thats what I did to achieve my afocal shots (gallery)

[pastiche]

Thanks Laurie61. But at nearly £60 I'm glad it's not compatible with my phone!

Charic, I will give that a go.

[Stu]

I managed this one through a 12.5mm BGO and my 12" dob. No tracking, just pointed it ahead of the moon and waited as it tracked across then took plenty of images. It's trial and error to get the best positioning but not so tricky. This is a crop from the original image.

I did see a thread about a home made adaptor using an old bottle top and phone case, might be worth digging out.

Stu

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[soundwave]

Hi pastiche,

I noticed that it's much (much) easier to shoot through a 25mm (for example) than a 4mm eyepiece. It's tricky to align it correctly, and took me about 20min to get my first satisfying picture with an iPhone held to an eyepiece.

And always keep a finger ready on the snap button  

If you try to image the moon, I found that it helps to hold the phone a bit farther away from the eyepiece, and move the phone left-right-up-down until you see a circle of light on the screen, then slowly take it closer and closer in as a straight line as humanly possible. This doesn't work as well with other objects, as they don't fill most of the eyepiece's aFOV.

If you want to make a simple adapter, check out my post here (I followed the instructions shown here). But of course, it won't fit all of your eyepieces.

[Blazar]

Hi , I have used the Baader digiscoping adapter to mount a normal handheld camera through a 25mm EP. then if you rack the camera back away from the EP and then use the zoom on the camera you can zoom back in. worked quite well and was great fun to do. Even managed to do Jupiter as well..you can see the others using my small TAL 100RS in one of my galleries.

[knobby]

Its all about slowly moving about til the object appears and snapping at the right moment...

HTC one x

250 PX dob, 18 mm ep

[Pondus]

If I can do this, anyone can ( Moon slightly off focus at 60x, cropped, Samsung S4 combined with the shakiest hands from a purely visual stargazer.. )

Rune

[Digger1895]

I find it easier if you don't have the rubber eyepiece cup up, lay the iPhone square against the eyepiece and gradually move the phone up until the image is centred. Always keep your trigger finger ready on the button. When you have the image centred wait a couple of secs for the exposure to set on say the moon or you'll end out with the image bleached and overexposed.

[Digger1895]

The above was iPhone 4S on my Heritage 130p

[Oortrageous]

This was through my Celestron 114EQ and the 10mm supplied EP, using a Samsung Note 2. I found what worked for me was to leave the rubber eye cup extended to find the point where the image was at it's best. As other's have said, definitely a bit of a hit and hope/ take lots of buttons to end up with anything remotely passable.

Even so I found that the people I showed the above out of focus, over exposed image to had unexpected reactions. Mainly work colleagues who I don't think have really understood the enthusiasm for astronomy seemed really surprised at how much you can see! A couple of them are even pencilled in now to come round and have a look through the real thing as a result, so that can only be good!

[OscarTheGrouch]

Thanks Laurie61. But at nearly £60 I'm glad it's not compatible with my phone!

Charic, I will give that a go.

Hi Pastiche.

Whenever you come up with a question that starts "Where can I find something cheap that will........" the answer, invariably, is eBay!! You can usually find someone who's invented what you need or something similar.

Here's a link to the first attempt (Linky) and at £14.99 plus £4.99 p&p, it's worth considering.  But can we do better?  I'm not sure.......

The following is a possible option if you can adapt one of your existing eyepieces (Linky).  I don't know whether it would be possible to replace the telescope and sliding mount with a proper eyepiece and line it up with the camera lens, but at £5.31 it's got to be worth a punt!!

Hope this helps.