C8NGT & Nikon D40

[AlcyoneSVX]

Hi,

I'm a beginner at astronomy. About 18 months ago I got a Celestron second hand C8N-GT and I'm very pleased with it. Mostly I look at easy things like the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn and the view through it is simply stunning.
But I want to take some pictures of the things I'm looking at. I've been experimenting with using my Nikon D40 DSLR. The resulting photos are universally awful, the photos are very grainy and either completely black, or blurry, or showing the internal parts of the telescope. Although I do have one shot of the Orion Nebula that I'm quite pleased with.

I've tried various different ways of attaching the camera to the scope. I found the secret to doing prime focus is removing the 1.25inch part of the focuser and screwing the T ring in it's place. I found the secret to doing eyepiece projection is not to push the eyepiece all the way down in the adapter tube, but to leave it up a few millimetres. I can't really see anything through the camera eyepiece. Sometimes I snap dozens of shots, moving the focus a fraction between each one. When trying to focus on Jupiter the other night I could see a white blur that gradually resolved into 5 white pentagons at best focus, I guess that comes from the prism of the camera because when I took the shot, I did get a picture of the planet.

Overall, I'm not enjoying using the D40, it has a very bright screen on the back which destroys my night vision and the moving shutter vibrates the telescope. It's a lot of fiddling about for a poor result. So, to get to the point, I'm wondering whether a dedicated astronomy camera is the solution to my problem? Should I spend some money on a fancy USB camera, or persevere with the Nikon? Will it be easier to get a good result, or am I just going to be substituting one set of problems for another?

Phil.

[MarsG76]

Welcome to SGL and to Astronomy....

What I recommend is that you take your time in learning the ropes and don't try to do too much too quickly. This hobby requires the patience of a monk and dedication of a Martial Artist..... I'd say take as much images with the D40 until you truely feel that you have reached the limit with it... before investing money in a dedicated astronomy camera, make sure that you learned the procedure, since a astronomy camera will not be a miracle solution.. yes it can deliver better quality images than a DSLR but a DSLR can deliver some very good images also... I my self being a DSLR astro imager and am very happy with the images I'm getting lately....

 

[MarsG76]

adding to the above.. I recommend that you exhaust the D40 before retiring it... you might want to start autoguiding before you give up on it.... make sure that your mount is sturdy enough.. a poor mount will not allow you to get any quality images no matter what camera you use... 

If the shutter is vibrating your telescope, that tells me that your mount might be flimsy... you can see if your DSLR has a mirror lockup feature which will help with vibration.

With your images being noisy, I assume that you're exposing at max gain, ISO? Once you're tracking/Guiding and exposing some good length of time than you can expose with a smaller ISO, which will take care of most of the noise problem...

I'd say that almost everyones first DSO that they're happy with would be the Orion Nebula, nice bright object... and this object can also be a guide to whether you should upgrade (or mod) your DSLR... you can get an amazing image with a unmodded, stock DSLR of the Orion Nebula if your system is working as it should.

Once again, take your time, do not rush it.... do not have unrealistic expectations and never give up.. we all started with mediocre images....

 

[AlcyoneSVX]

Wow, that was a fast response! Thanks for the advice. I've attached my 3 best photos below to show the kind of results I'm getting. Actually when I look at these three in isolation, without all the bad ones, it doesn't seem so bad. But the view through the telescope eyepiece is a million times better and that is what I really want to capture in the photo. Is that too much to hope for?

[Anthony1979]

Only problem i found with using my D40 was getting focus with there being no live view