Eyepiece / Barlow

[GiggaKubicca]

Firstly I have searched the forum, I however have some personal questions I want to ask and my situation is different so I want to dedicate a post for it.

Firstly, I'm a complete beginner. Someone was selling a XT10G because they need the money and needed it gone so I picked it up for an absolute steal, well from what my research turned up anyway. I'd previously been searching for other telescopes. Never buy anything that is an investment straight away. ANYWAY. It came with these eyepieces and barlow and I'd like some help to determine whether or not I should upgrade the eyepieces but from what I have read I should probably upgrade my barlow but unsure what brand to choose and how much I should pay.
The eyepieces, 1.25" Sirius Plossl - 40mm, 17mm, 10mm, 7.5mm, and 6.3mm.
Barlow, 1.25" 2x Orion Shorty Barlow Lens, single element.

I recently started taking up photography before the Corona happened and I have always wanted to take pictures of "space". As a beginner of photography I have a basic DSLR camera. Now the reason I say this is because I'd like to do astrophotography. Currently I am focusing on the moon as it's closer, easier and good practise. However other planets and perhaps galaxies will be the end result.

Currently this is my camera adapter set up, it's a bit weird but it was sort of 'working'?
The adapter has a 10mm eyepiece inside and the barlow attached to the end, it's the old one with the single element.
I believe there was turbulence, didn't help there was some mild cloud as well. Help for this is also appreciated. Am I doing anything wrong?
I was also having 'weird' lighting issues. Sometimes the live view on the camera was great and then sometimes it was just bright white, or a lens flare look, as seen in image 18.
Some of the pictures are "better" than others and I can't remember which ones were taken when and what the condition of the clouds in the sky were. They were taking around 2am today.
Also a video I took. https://streamable.com/44hjj2

[Cornelius Varley]

Hello and welcome to SGL. You will get better, sharper images if you remove the 10mm eyepiece out of image path and connect the body of the camera to the barlow lens using the t-ring and a nose piece adapter or directly to the focuser. The type of imaging using an eyepiece in front of the camera is known as eyepiece projection and needs a good quality and lower power eyepiece to get good results.

[GiggaKubicca]

@Cornelius Varley The problem is I can't figure out how my barlow connects. If you look at the image you see what I have. I've taken the barlow apart, three parts. I've taken the adapter apart, three parts. Nose piece, T-2 ring and the adapters body. I screwed in the T-2 to the T-ring and tried connecting parts/all of my barlow to it. The barlow thread are about a quarter to small to screw, so it sits in but can't screw so obviously falls out. He said he got the barlow in 2015, I asked someone elsewhere about it and said that it seems for the picture that the barlow is an old one and the design has changed now.

[miguel87]

Start without the barlow of you can, as has already been said. Use your telescope as the only lens. Barlow of you want a more zoomed in view but a poor barlow will degrade your image.

Aiming a camera down an eyepiece can be very difficult, at least it was for me!

[GiggaKubicca]

@miguel87 Well I've connected the adapter nose piece to my T-ring so I can put it into the eyepiece on the telescope. My issue is that the brightness is too bright. I've been playing around with the focus, ISO and shutter. New to photography as well, haha. Learning as I go. Any ideas?

[DaveL59]

not tried DSLR-scope, but what settings are you trying?

On my Fuji with 400mm lens, I've been using F8 1/320ths ISO400. Appreciate you can't set aperture but previously I'd shot the moon at ISO100 1/250th aperture wide open (f4-5.6) so perhaps you need to drop the ISO and up the shutter to 1/500th or faster?

[GiggaKubicca]

@DaveL59 When I went up higher with shutter the image got darker if memory serves me. The higher the ISO the brighter. Originally before I took my barlow off I was shooting at ISO100 and 1/20 and this gave my I would say my best image yet.

 

[DaveL59]

yep faster shutter, less exposure, darker image. Conversely higher ISO, brighter image. Case of finding the combination that works for your rig which I can't really help with, was just a suggestion since you mentioned it was too bright so I suggested a faster shutter  It will be a case of experimenting with focus and ISO/shutter speed till you find a setting to get better results, ISO400 would allow you a faster shutter than ISO100 for the same exposure, for example. You could try to use exposure-bracketing if your camera can do that automatically, which may give you a better idea too.

[GiggaKubicca]

Just putting it out there for everyone, I'm still looking for barlow help.

[miguel87]

6 hours ago, GiggaKubicca said:

Just putting it out there for everyone, I'm still looking for barlow help.

What specific question do you need answered?

[Louis D]

I think you're missing a T-thread to 1.25" adapter to attach your T-ring to your barlow.

[GiggaKubicca]

14 hours ago, miguel87 said:

What specific question do you need answered?

 

On 06/05/2020 at 20:17, GiggaKubicca said:

from what I have read I should probably upgrade my barlow but unsure what brand to choose and how much I should pay.

 

[GiggaKubicca]

6 hours ago, Louis D said:

I think you're missing a T-thread to 1.25" adapter to attach your T-ring to your barlow.

I have it. It's just my barlow is screwn on the outside so you can't see it in the picture. The barlow is too small to be screwed into the thread of the ring as seen in your picture but to large to slot all the way down the adapter. I'm looking to buy a better barlow. As from what I've been told I'd be better off using a barlow to photo the moon. The barlow I currently have is a single element and sort of "cheap". Supposedly a better quality barlow will offer me better picture quality, which makes sense.

[DaveL59]

As Miguel has suggested, try first without the barlow, just the DSLR T-ring and nosepiece and see if you can find focus and the settings to get an image. Worry about the barlow later as you need to get it working first before deciding if a barlow is needed or not...

[GiggaKubicca]

2 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

As Miguel has suggested, try first without the barlow, just the DSLR T-ring and nosepiece and see if you can find focus and the settings to get an image. Worry about the barlow later as you need to get it working first before deciding if a barlow is needed or not...

I tried to focus with just the nosepiece. I wasn't getting anything other than a bright ball with no haze.

I was also told to try video mode as it should auto focus. Still the same thing.

Edited May 7, 2020 by GiggaKubicca

[JamesF]

Auto focus presumably won't work when you don't have a lens attached, so I'd forget video mode for the time being.

I think you should be trying much faster exposure times though.  Possibly nearer 1/100th sec, or even 1/200th or 1/500th.

James

[DaveL59]

not sure who told you that, but since the DSLR has no AF lens attached and is using the scope as its long lens, it can't auto-focus and there's no aperture control, it'll all be manual mode. So the only control you have is shutter speed, since aperture is fixed by whatever the scope you have is. When I was testing last night with the phone thru the eyepiece I was using shutter speeds in the 1/1600-1/3200s range at ISO400 with the moon being so bright at the moment. Do you have a moon filter at all to dull the glare to help with focus? 

A barlow won't improve the glare problem when trying to see anything so you're unlikely to get further until you can find a way to get the camera to show an image that you can focus with IMHO.

Edited May 7, 2020 by DaveL59

[GiggaKubicca]

1 minute ago, JamesF said:

Auto focus presumably won't work when you don't have a lens attached, so I'd forget video mode for the time being.

I think you should be trying much faster exposure times though.  Possibly nearer 1/100th sec, or even 1/200th or 1/500th.

James

I'll try it but I'm not sure it will work. I didn't go higher than 1/250th but it was still more or less the same. 1/250 ISO 100-6000. The weather doesn't permit me to go test it tonight but I'll still try it. I was talking to a guy who does astrophotography, he was telling me how video should work because he said I'd have a harder time focusing manually than I would having video do it automatically.
I'm just saying what others have told me though.

[GiggaKubicca]

3 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

not sure who told you that, but since the DSLR has no AF lens attached and is using the scope as its long lens, it can't auto-focus and there's no aperture control, it'll all be manual mode. So the only control you have is shutter speed, since aperture is fixed by whatever the scope you have is. When I was testing last night with the phone thru the eyepiece I was using shutter speeds in the 1/1600-1/3200s range at ISO400 with the moon being so bright at the moment. Do you have a moon filter at all to dull the glare to help with focus? 

A barlow won't improve the glare problem when trying to see anything so you're unlikely to get further until you can find a way to get the camera to show an image that you can focus with IMHO.

Yes I have a small moon 13% (I believe) filter.

Filter will fit an eyepiece or barlow obviously though. So unless I'm wrong I'd still need to use a barlow.

Edited May 7, 2020 by GiggaKubicca

[DaveL59]

ideally keep the ISO in the 100-400 range, maybe 800 on darker objects, as you'll be trading noise against sensitivity.

at ISO100 you'd maybe need 1/500-1/1250th sec shutter speed at the moment. Crank the speed up until you find the image starts to darken and then try checking focus and then adjust the shutter speed to get the best details?

[JamesF]

What DSLR is it, out of interest?

James

[DaveL59]

2 minutes ago, GiggaKubicca said:

Yes I have a small moon 13% (I believe) filter.

Filter will fit an eyepiece or barlow obviously though. So unless I'm wrong I'd still need to use a barlow.

does it not screw onto the end of the camera nosepiece? or is that a non-standard thread?

[GiggaKubicca]

3 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

ideally keep the ISO in the 100-400 range, maybe 800 on darker objects, as you'll be trading noise against sensitivity.

at ISO100 you'd maybe need 1/500-1/1250th sec shutter speed at the moment. Crank the speed up until you find the image starts to darken and then try checking focus and then adjust the shutter speed to get the best details?

See this is the problem. I'll upload a picture but I have conflicting results, so maybe you can help me understand? I took the picture two nights ago at 1/25 ISO 100 and it is by far the best picture I have taken yet. I do believe though that this was with the configuration as seen in the original post. The other original picture were taken at 0'5" ISO 100, because people were trying to help me out with why my screen was just black.

[GiggaKubicca]

[GiggaKubicca]

6 minutes ago, JamesF said:

What DSLR is it, out of interest?

James

A beginners camera, Canon 2000d.