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Greetings, newb here from down under


GuitarSlinger

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G'day folks,

I've always been largely interesting in astronomy but it's only been until recently that I've started stargazing, upon managing to score a Celestron PowerSeeker 127EQ that was just sitting in a family members garage for a while.

Since using it I'be become addicted. I've always been a bit of a web forum person too so I figured I might as well sign up here and get to know some people and learn a thing or two.

I've already had a bit of a crack at some astrophotography. The PowerSeeker that was given to me didn't have any eye-pieces so I just bought the standard Celestron AstroMaster accessory kit which comes with some filters, a Barlow lens, and a 15mm and 6 mm eye-pieces.

So far, just using my iPhone 5C, I've managed to take a few shots of the moon, pointing the camera down the eye-piece, which aren't anything special but I guess not too bad for a first attempt, which you can check out below.

Having done some research on the sort of telescopes that are available, I've learned that what I'm using us pretty much at the bottom of the entry level in terms of telescopes. It seems there's some great telescopes that you can get which make stargazing fairly easy, even for a novice, although I'm sure there's a lot to learn in terms of handling a bit of a bare-bones reflector.

Mainly though I'd love to learn more about how I can do better astrophotography. 

For instance tonight I looked at Saturn for the first time, but quickly realized that trying to photograph it with an iPhone pointed down the eye-piece is probably not going to work.

I looking forward to getting to know you all here.

Cheers

Here's a Moon pic I took last night:

MOON%201.jpg

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Amazing what images can be taken with just a camera phone.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

Yeah it doesn't seem to shabby considering. I did touch it up a bit -- increased the sharpness, adjusted the brightness and contrast, which really improved the image. And that was the best photo out of literally 800+, whilst holding the iPhone up to the eye-piece on rapid fire and just holding the "capture" button, and doing my best to keep the phone still; I quickly learned it was a lot easier to do by lowering the telescope to a seated position and getting a chair. I'm wagering there's a better way.

When I bought the eye-pieces from a local optics store, I asked if they had any mounts for phones but alas, no go. Any tips on how I can take some better photos with a PowerSeeker?

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Hi and welcome to SGL! Glad that you found us, there's a few of us imagers knocking about. If you think that DSO's will be your main imaging interest, then a really good book to get hold of is 'Making Every Photon Count' available in the book section of the FLO website. Not sure if it can be sent to Australia though, but well worth checking.

Look forward to seeing you around :)

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Hi and welcome to SGL! Glad that you found us, there's a few of us imagers knocking about. If you think that DSO's will be your main imaging interest, then a really good book to get hold of is 'Making Every Photon Count' available in the book section of the FLO website. Not sure if it can be sent to Australia though, but well worth checking.

Look forward to seeing you around :)

Thanks! I'll check that out 

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