Orion XT8 Dob imaging advice

[EnglishNightHawk]

Hello fellow astronomers!

It has been a while since I have posted on here. Over the last couple of years I have been slowly upgrading telescopes and yesterday I put together my brand new Orion XT8 Dobsonian telescope. It is the standard model without GO TO features. I managed to take some nice pictures and video with a Canon 350d and a Celestron Neximage 5 with my old telescopes which were also not GO TO capable. I sold the Neximage 5 a while back. Okay so this is my main question. Would I be wasting my time and money buying an Orion Steadypix Pro or similar eyepiece camera mount using a point and shoot Nikon camera? Am i better off saving that money and putting it towards another laptop and eyepiece camera? Will planets be completely washed out etc with the small amount of changeable options on a point and shoot? Definitely on a strict budget for now after just purchasing this new telescope and accessories, otherwise I would happily go ahead with the latter option. 

Any advice is greatly appreciated! The vast amount of knowledge provided through this website is amazing!

[happy-kat]

Does that mount track in altaz?

If it does take a look at the no eq challenge thread.

Do you still have your 350d?

[EnglishNightHawk]

Currently I do not have the 350d or neximage 5 which is why I was asking about using a point and shoot camera with an eyepiece mount. The Orion XT8 is fully manual with a dobsonian mount no kind of tracking or GO-TO features of any kind. I was very happy with the results I got with the Celestron Neximage 5 and my old 90mm Meade Refractor which also had no tracking or GO-TO features. This new telescope is mainly for visual use but I just wanted to see if anyone has any experience using a point and shoot camera up to the eyepiece regarding the quality of the images you can attain that way. 

I appreciate the reply!

[gosnold]

 

I have a vanilla XT8 too, and I use a Nikon 1 j2 + a 3x barlow do to prime focus imaging. It works OK for planetary imaging, since the nikon can shoot 1080p video, you can let the target drift into the field of view, recenter it when is disappears, and so on. It gives the  kind of image you can see below.

You could probably do something similar with a point and shoot camera and eyepiece projection, if it shoots HD video.

 

[EnglishNightHawk]

Wow that is an incredible shot of Jupiter! That is very promising indeed. I bought a Gosky phone mount so I plan on trying it out soon. The weather is meant to be bad for the rest of the week here! I have a Samsung smartphone that will shoot HD video and it has exposure settings etc for regular pictures. Do you have any issues with the camera weighing the telescope down? The  mount + phone is fairly heavy. 

Thank you so much for the reply!

[gosnold]

As long as you keep the springs on, you shouldn't have any problems. On my setup I can even remove the springs I the target is not too low on the horizon.

[EnglishNightHawk]

I'm hoping to try out my XT8 for the first time tonight if the forecast stays partly cloudy. Pretty much constant rain for the last week! I Appreciate the reply gosnold!