Need help to buy a camera eyepiece

[shopnochari_meghdut]

Hi,
I am trying to buy a camera for SkyWatcher Star Discovery P150i WiFi Computerised Telescope. I am not even a novice in astrophotography. Can anyone suggest what should I buy (within 100 UK pound). It is mentionable that I have a Canon 1100D dslr. Thanks in advance...

Edited December 2, 2019 by shopnochari_meghdut

[rickwayne]

Hi, and welcome!

In order to recommend a camera it's important to know what kind of work you want to do, and how "Hubble-like" you want your pictures to be. For example, if you want to get detailed pictures of small (far-away) galaxies, or images of faint deep-sky nebulae, you're probably going to be disappointed, that's technically rather demanding and probably will require fancier equipment.

But if you want to snap some shots of bright planets, the Moon, or some bright star clusters like the Hercules, there are a couple of things you can do. The simplest is just to search for a cell phone mounting bracket that you can affix to your scope; there are bunches of them available and I'm no expert!

You can possibly mount your Canon DSLR on the scope, with no lens or eyepiece, to do so-called "prime focus" photography. The issue here is whether you can get the camera to focus. You can find out whether it's possible by:

1. In daylight, aim your scope at some distant object (NOT THE SUN!!!).
2. Remove the eyepiece, and turn the focus knob "inward" so the focusing tube is as little extended as possible.
3. Remove the lens from your DSLR, and turn it on. (Be careful about dust!) Turn on Live View.
4. Without banging the focusing tube of the scope into the delicate bits inside your camera body, hold the camera up to where the eyepiece would go.

Can you see an image on the camera screen? Can you move the camera close enough that the image becomes sharp?

If so and there's enough room to spare, you can buy a T-mount adapter that will mount on your body, and a T-mount-to-1.25" adapter that screws into that and lets you plug the camera into the scope in place of your eyepiece. You could start here (no recommendation implied, just the first thing that came up when I searched).

You can also find adapters that offer the option of "eyepiece projection", which allows you to do more or less the same thing with an eyepiece in place. While this will work mechanically, the results optically are likely to be not so great.

Good luck!

[happy-kat]

It's a great setup you have there.

From all I've read the 150p discovery flavour of your telescope does not have enough inward travel to reach focus with a mirrored DSLR. 

There is a member who hacked the focuser about there is a YouTube video but that would invalidate warranty. There is also another member here who from memory with a mirrorless camera and new very low profile adapter may have gained focus but they haven't posted in a while. You might need to try searching on here to find the answers.