Afocal lunar close-ups

[Stu 30,703]

Following on from my lunar shots just using  just the x30 zoom on my Panasonic camera, I thought I ought to try it on a scope! These were very quickly taken in about 15 mins using my Vixen f9 Fluorite on the Giro-WR mount. It was all a little random in terms of targeting, will be much better when I pop the same combination onto the Vixen GP.

Focusing leaves a fair amount to be desired, I need to play around with different methods when I have more time, and using the 10 second timer made it hard to just when targets were going to be in view.

Anyway, I think these might be better if I try with the 40mm TMB Paragon eyepiece, but that involves using a 2" diagonal which I could not be bothered to do at the time!

So, much room for improvement, particularly on focus, although there is a pleasing lack of CA in the images.

No comments about orientation please 

Stu

[nightfisher 7,479]

Stu, very good, clearly you did not have tracking on this set up, much easier with tracking, giving time to work at getting focus close, does the panasonic have a manual focus option?

I use a Pentax optio T30 for A-focal as this has IR remote for shutter and manual focus, the holy grail for A-focal, keep at it, also shhot a movie if on tracking mount then process in pipp and registax

[Stu 30,703]

Need to check on remote shutter, that would make a big difference. I was using auto focus but need to play around with manual. Agreed re tracking vs giro AltAz

[Stu 30,703]

This looks promising, a WiFi app to fully control the camera, including the manual focus. Apologies for the subject matter used for my example  

[nightfisher 7,479]

The app is going to make a huge difference, i can see you getting into the art of A-focal

[johnfosteruk 12,726]

Great start Stu, looking forward to the results as you perfect the technique with the app. Keep 'em coming.