DLSR

[Mattwaters]

Good mormimg all,

So I decided to try out a DLSR with my scope, I have all the adaptors and would like to let you know my thoughts and was wondering what kind of experiences you've all had.

So my first attempt was with a barrel adaptor when you place the eye piece in then lock the camera in place. When using this method I found that the camera seemed to be to far away from the eye piece so unless I had a perfect line of sight, I literally could see anything. Definatly didnt long enough to manually focus when I spotted something anyway! After half an hour of tracking Saturn I gave up on the hope to get a decent image or even find it! 

At this point I dedlcided to mount the Camera diect to my scope with out any eye pieces. Initially I thought this would give basic or bad magnification. But to my surprise It didnt appear that bad! The field of view was instantly better and you could see detail of Saturn which I was quite pleased with. Then Saturn disappeared behind a roof in the distance and I packed up to go home lol. What I did see was quite small though and I wasn't able to get a picture before it disappeared....

What are people reccomendations when using DLSR cameras on an Equatorial mouny?

[PeterCPC]

You don't give any details of the scope or mount (other than EQ) so not easy to respond but it is better IMO to connect DSLR direct rather than through eyepiece (eyepiece projection). The field of view is going to be large as the DSLR sensor is large so objects like Saturn will appear small. If you want to do planetary imaging I would recommend a high frame rate planetary camera like a ZWO ASI224 or similar. DSLRs are better suited to DSO images where you want a large FOV.

Peter

[cjdawson]

I use a Canon 70D and almost always connect it direct to the scope as you did in your second test.   (This method is called prime focus).  I've found that putting eyepieces in the optical train simple makes things a lot more complicated.

For imaging, I've recently switch my method from using the camera direct to connecting to a laptop via USB, then controlling it that way.   My software of choice is BackyardEOS.  It has features to help with focusing and imaging too.

For planetary, it'll take movies using live view, and the recomendation is to set the live view to 5x mag - this is apparently a 1:1 pixel ratio.  It'll make planets appear bigger and easier to capture.

With prime focus, you'll most likely find that a full frame is about the size of a full moon.  That will give some idea of scale.