Astro Photo fail.

[Wilburt]

I’m certain it’ll be obvious to someone who knows what they're doing but to me(fairly clueless newbie) taking pictures with my telescope is becoming a bit frustrating. 

My gear:

SW 102 star travel, refrector f4.9

Standard corrected 45 1.25 diagonal 

Altaire 90 2” diagonal 

SW 25, 10 eyepieces, new 5,12, 20 eyepieces (these new ones are all bigger and wont go in the camera tube)

Nikon T ring, extended tube to fit in T ring(this can hold a small EP) 1.25 adaptor 

EQ and AZ mount

Nikon 3000

Bluetooth release. 

I cannot however get the camera to focus on anything distant, moon etc. I can get it focused on trees in the garden by putting a 25mm EP in the camera adaptor but even these are vignetted with black which I presume is the edge of the EP. 

I have tried using both diagonals and neither. 

Could someone help me the obvious mistake I’m making?  All help much appreciated. 

Thank you 

 

 

 

 

 

[Thalestris24]

Hi

I think you'll need an extension tube to go in place of the diagonal. If you measure the focal length of the scope from the lens plane (eg with a tape measure) the distance will show where your camera sensor plane should be.

Louise

[alacant]

2 hours ago, Wilburt said:

the obvious mistake I’m making?

Hi. The back of the camera needs to be 50cm from the telescope lens. Best to lose the diagonals, set the focuser around say 2cm out from its minimum travel and then use extension tubes to get you around the correct distance. The focus should now be close enough to get sharp. This -without an eyepiece- will probably do it. HTH.

[vlaiv]

Using eyepiece projection is a bit tricky. A lot depends on eyepiece to sensor distance. This should be quite small if you don't want to get very big magnification and also it adds to in focus travel so at some configurations you might not be able to get it in focus at all. It will cause vignetting as well, depending on field of view of eyepiece.

As has been pointed out, try putting camera directly to focuser with 2"/T2 adapter, so no diagonal, no eyepiece projection adapter. This way you should be able to get focus without problem.

[Wilburt]

Thanks for all your replies. 

I think I understand and as expected I’m now wondering why I didnt try that!! 

I shall give it a go tomorrow and report back.