Help and advice on taking photos

[Dannomiss]

Hi All, 

So I need some help. I am getting there slowly with getting to grips with heritage 150p scope and trying a few photos with phone and adapter, however I know its practice, practice practice and I know I could invest more money in camera equipment, but I know plenty of people who are taking great pictures of the planets with a smartphone, so I don't really want to give up.

So using my heritage 150p, do you think a magnification using the 3.2mm lense giving approx 235x, will be too much mag to get a decent pic? Or do I need to reduce the mag so image doesn't distort? Presently I am on about 187x and what happens is the phone camera makes the image smaller again, so I zoom in slightly to about 2.5x on the camera. But the thing I am struggling with is getting a clear image representation. They are very noisy and can't seem to get the focus right. The focuser on the heritage is a bit rubbish anyway, and only needs to be knocked and ots out of focus again as there is only a tiny bit of movement in focusing anyway. 

If you could offer some help to this 6 week newbie it would be amazing!!! 🙂

[DaveL59]

It does take practise and I'm still early on that path I'll admit, in my case using the phone hand-held just to make life harder. From your profile pic you wear glasses, do you wear them with the scope too? I realised that I don't wear mine at the scope so focus is always a touch off, mine are for reading so I tend not to wear them for bino/scope/camera activities so need to get into the habit I think.

For the phone, do you have a camera app that you can manually set the focus and other settings (exposure time, aperture, ISO etc)? On the note-10plus I have I get that with the in-built app tho there are other apps that can be loaded too.

As for the magnification, so long as there's enough light and detail you may be ok, but pushing the ISO will result in noisy images. Zoom on the phone itself - is if optical or digital, the latter will affect quality if taken too far.

Hardest thing I find is getting the phone in the right place, both centred on the eyepiece and the right distance from it to account for eye relief. That wildly aflicts the image I get, made worse being as I hand hold the thing at the moment. Not sure what holder you are using but if its a helical focuser then you've got the problem of the holder/phone causing rotation shifting focus and possibly sag that will affect how well the phone is aligned with the eyepiece and give distortion.

[Cosmic Geoff]

Modern smartphones often have good cameras - they should, when the smartphone often costs more than the scopes some people hang them on. 🙂 However, smartphones are not designed for taking planet images through a telescope. 

Are you taking single still images?  Successful planetary imaging depends on taking thousands of images (= a video) and using clever  software to combine the best bits to produce a clear final image.  Dedicated planetary imaging cameras are in fact video cameras that fit in the scope in place of an eyepiece.  A single shot generally looks blurred because of the distorting effect of the atmosphere, but with the processing, at the final stage a clear image appears as if by magic.  With Jupiter and Saturn currently so low, the problem is accentuated.

You might be able to achieve this by taking a video with your phone and transferring it to a PC or laptop for processing. If not, you may have to bite the bullet and buy the proper kit. 😦

[Dannomiss]

An interesting observation I noticed doing a daytime test with my 8mm Starguider lens with my smartphone that the difference between the standard phone lense and the wide angle lens theres a massive difference...

[Dannomiss]

1 hour ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

Modern smartphones often have good cameras - they should, when the smartphone often costs more than the scopes some people hang them on. 🙂 However, smartphones are not designed for taking planet images through a telescope. 

Are you taking single still images?  Successful planetary imaging depends on taking thousands of images (= a video) and using clever  software to combine the best bits to produce a clear final image.  Dedicated planetary imaging cameras are in fact video cameras that fit in the scope in place of an eyepiece.  A single shot generally looks blurred because of the distorting effect of the atmosphere, but with the processing, at the final stage a clear image appears as if by magic.  With Jupiter and Saturn currently so low, the problem is accentuated.

You might be able to achieve this by taking a video with your phone and transferring it to a PC or laptop for processing. If not, you may have to bite the bullet and buy the proper kit. 😦

I am just getting into learning about stacking, so I am hoping that will help a little. I suspose also with video, my scope doesn't have tracking, so makes it a little more tough for sure but still possible. Presently just doing single images and pleased with how far I have come. Here is what I have done so far. I suspose I may upgrade to dedicated equipment after I have learnt alot more about astonomy, the sky, the stars etc. Need to learn to walk before I run...

[Aramcheck]

PIPP (Planetary Imaging PreProcessor) is a useful tool for centering images, prior to processing in Registax (or similar). Both programs are free:-
https://sites.google.com/site/astropipp/home
https://www.astronomie.be/registax/

Have fun!
Cheers
Ivor

[Dannomiss]

2 minutes ago, Aramcheck said:

PIPP (Planetary Imaging PreProcessor) is a useful tool for centering images, prior to processing in Registax (or similar). Both programs are free:-
https://sites.google.com/site/astropipp/home
https://www.astronomie.be/registax/

Have fun!
Cheers
Ivor

Thank you so much

[Dannomiss]

4 hours ago, DaveL59 said:

It does take practise and I'm still early on that path I'll admit, in my case using the phone hand-held just to make life harder. From your profile pic you wear glasses, do you wear them with the scope too? I realised that I don't wear mine at the scope so focus is always a touch off, mine are for reading so I tend not to wear them for bino/scope/camera activities so need to get into the habit I think.

For the phone, do you have a camera app that you can manually set the focus and other settings (exposure time, aperture, ISO etc)? On the note-10plus I have I get that with the in-built app tho there are other apps that can be loaded too.

As for the magnification, so long as there's enough light and detail you may be ok, but pushing the ISO will result in noisy images. Zoom on the phone itself - is if optical or digital, the latter will affect quality if taken too far.

Hardest thing I find is getting the phone in the right place, both centred on the eyepiece and the right distance from it to account for eye relief. That wildly aflicts the image I get, made worse being as I hand hold the thing at the moment. Not sure what holder you are using but if its a helical focuser then you've got the problem of the holder/phone causing rotation shifting focus and possibly sag that will affect how well the phone is aligned with the eyepiece and give distortion.

Thanks so much for your reply Dave. I do wear glasses and the main reason I have started to upgrade the lenses to the BST starguider range to help with that. the camera App on my phone also has Pro/Manual settings,so I am using that too which is good. Yeah realising the digital zoom won't help so wills top doing that 🙂 Also you make a good point about the adapter and the focuser. The focuser is the helical focuser and pretty rubbish and that. Put an eyepiece in, plus attach an adapter and phone and I think its tilting it slightly off which won't help either.

[happy-kat]

With your static mount video where it includes the entire target is easier to process afterwards even if the target is drifting across the frame. You could always trim the ends of your video off afterwards.

Have you tried some ptfe tape on your focuser.

[Dannomiss]

 

On 13/07/2020 at 16:47, happy-kat said:

With your static mount video where it includes the entire target is easier to process afterwards even if the target is drifting across the frame. You could always trim the ends of your video off afterwards.

Have you tried some ptfe tape on your focuser.

Next time when it is clear skies I will try a video and see how that comes out
Yes Have PFTE tape. Have to replace every couple of outtings as comes of, but is better for sure 🙂

 

Edited July 15, 2020 by Dannomiss

[DaveL59]

1 hour ago, Dannomiss said:

An interesting observation I noticed doing a daytime test with my 8mm Starguider lens with my smartphone that the difference between the standard phone lense and the wide angle lens theres a massive difference...

that's weird, opposite of what you'd expect really

I wonder is there any way you can lock the focus on the 150P, maybe a bodge with some sort of ring clamp? As Kat says PTFE would tighten up the focuser movement but the clamp and phone will still likely cause focus creep.

I've a helical focuser on the TAL-M but no phone holder so while I'm aware that would be an issue I've not had direct experience of that. No focus lock screw there either so a bodge might have to be considered if I ever need to experiment with that scope.

Going for video on the planets you don't need to shoot hours, just a few mins I believe as that'd grab plenty of frames which you can then play with in stacking apps and then crop the final to remove the muddy edges.

 

[AstroNebulee]

On 13/07/2020 at 11:43, DaveL59 said:

It does take practise and I'm still early on that path I'll admit, in my case using the phone hand-held just to make life harder. From your profile pic you wear glasses, do you wear them with the scope too? I realised that I don't wear mine at the scope so focus is always a touch off, mine are for reading so I tend not to wear them for bino/scope/camera activities so need to get into the habit I think.

For the phone, do you have a camera app that you can manually set the focus and other settings (exposure time, aperture, ISO etc)? On the note-10plus I have I get that with the in-built app tho there are other apps that can be loaded too.

As for the magnification, so long as there's enough light and detail you may be ok, but pushing the ISO will result in noisy images. Zoom on the phone itself - is if optical or digital, the latter will affect quality if taken too far.

Hardest thing I find is getting the phone in the right place, both centred on the eyepiece and the right distance from it to account for eye relief. That wildly aflicts the image I get, made worse being as I hand hold the thing at the moment. Not sure what holder you are using but if its a helical focuser then you've got the problem of the holder/phone causing rotation shifting focus and possibly sag that will affect how well the phone is aligned with the eyepiece and give distortion.

I use a celestron nexyz phone adapter a little pricey but let's you adjust on all 3 axis so much easier to centre And perfect for astrophotography with a smartphone but could be an issue with the focuser on your scope maybe, use a combination of pipp or autostakkert with registax to process images and polish off in photoshop but your are way better than mine on my astromaster 130eq 

[Dannomiss]

2 hours ago, LeeHore7 said:

I use a celestron nexyz phone adapter a little pricey but let's you adjust on all 3 axis so much easier to centre And perfect for astrophotography with a smartphone but could be an issue with the focuser on your scope maybe, use a combination of pipp or autostakkert with registax to process images and polish off in photoshop but your are way better than mine on my astromaster 130eq 

I have been thinking of the Nexyz adapter and like the look of it, but I worry its too bulky for the focuser on my scope. I am trying something a little different... not the best job, but is secure.... Just need one mini tripod ball head to attach a light weight phone adapter. now my thinking is, that my current adapter has been hanging off the eyepiece and I worry its going to break it because of the weight. WHat I am trying to do here is hover the phone over the eyepiece. Now the nice thing is with the BST starguider ones, you can unscrew the top part to adjust eyerelief which then helps line up phone camera flat on the eyepiece lens. 

I will up you when the other part comes and I can test it out 🙂

[AstroNebulee]

8 hours ago, Dannomiss said:

I have been thinking of the Nexyz adapter and like the look of it, but I worry its too bulky for the focuser on my scope. I am trying something a little different... not the best job, but is secure.... Just need one mini tripod ball head to attach a light weight phone adapter. now my thinking is, that my current adapter has been hanging off the eyepiece and I worry its going to break it because of the weight. WHat I am trying to do here is hover the phone over the eyepiece. Now the nice thing is with the BST starguider ones, you can unscrew the top part to adjust eyerelief which then helps line up phone camera flat on the eyepiece lens. 

I will up you when the other part comes and I can test it out 🙂

Yes the nexyz maybe a bit bulky and may not fit on your focuser properly as it's one that rotates rather than up and down focusing for your scope I think, is yours a skywatcher heritage and that put me off when I was thinking of the heritage 

[Dannomiss]

On 15/07/2020 at 18:21, LeeHore7 said:

Yes the nexyz maybe a bit bulky and may not fit on your focuser properly as it's one that rotates rather than up and down focusing for your scope I think, is yours a skywatcher heritage and that put me off when I was thinking of the heritage 

Yes its the new heritage 150p. generally I am really pleased with the scope and love it. It's just that focuser. Wish I could adapt it for the up and down one, but think its near impossible unfortunately. but while I enjoy and learn, its a great scope