Dobsonian Astrophotography

[jonbarr87]

I am debating taking the plunge and dabbling very lightly in astro photography. My scope is a SW 200p dob and the only camera I will have access to is the very lame 5 mp camera on my LG 4k 2017 phone. So a couple of questions: 

1. As for a smart phone adapter, the one i've seen used the most would be the NEXYZ 3-AXIS UNIVERSAL SMARTPHONE ADAPTER. However I have not been able to find any reviews or anything on it. 
2. Can anyone recommend any decent Apps for the phone so I can at least make the best of what I have? Manual ISO setting, Exposure times, etc 

 

[jonbarr87]

Sorry, I guess this should have been posted in the "Getting Started with Imaging" Section...

[PaulM]

23 minutes ago, jonbarr87 said:

I am debating taking the plunge and dabbling very lightly in astro photography. My scope is a SW 200p dob and the only camera I will have access to is the very lame 5 mp camera on my LG 4k 2017 phone. So a couple of questions: 

1. As for a smart phone adapter, the one i've seen used the most would be the NEXYZ 3-AXIS UNIVERSAL SMARTPHONE ADAPTER. However I have not been able to find any reviews or anything on it. 
2. Can anyone recommend any decent Apps for the phone so I can at least make the best of what I have? Manual ISO setting, Exposure times, etc 

 

I've tried this with my 200p last week so thats a good coincidence using my Android Samsung S8

The smartphone adapter you refer to is the one I got, very good build and suppose to be the best on the market - plenty of reviews on Amazon, mounting is secure for me and moving the camera around is easy and with a little practice you can get a focused image quickly, I was surprised at how clear the image was on the phone

I installed the Camera FV-5 app so I could control exposure times \ ISO etc, didn't really research which is the best app that much - this app also saves images in RAW format but I had to pay £3 for that feature

Find my first attempt of images which are of M13 large globular cluster and M21 Ring nebula with this setup

Even with a short exposure times I got star trailing - both these images were captured as a 1 sec exposure \ ISO-800 through a 25mm eyepiece

[jonbarr87]

Thank you for the input. I didn't even think to check amazon lol. Great to hear that you had great experience with it on a similar setup!  

[PaulM]

Additional to the above I have also purchased a ZWO camera for planets\moon images, see my first moon images, not managed to capture a planet yet as still getting used to the software to catpure images through the ZWO camera

[jonbarr87]

Oh wow. Decent detail for sure in those! 

[PaulM]

Just now, jonbarr87 said:

Oh wow. Decent detail for sure in those! 

Yeah I was happy with them as a first attempt, I did manage to get Saturn on the laptop through the ZWO camera but it was low and I ran out of time to capture\image it I will try it on Mars at the next opportunity