Imaging with my digital compact

[McMoon]

Hi,

I have a compact digital camera and have just found out on here it ''can'' be used for imaging.

Unfortunately, I does not have shutter speed manual over ride and with automatic settings, I can only expect a 4sec shutter speed.

I know this will limit the imaging potential and you will probably say experiment and see..but how much of a handicap do you think the 4sec speed will be?

[GordonCopestake]

Unless your taking photos of very dim DSO's then 4seconds is more than enough to be honest. You can image afocally saturn, jupiter and the moon with just your normal exposures. In fact longer exposures will probably over exposure those brighter objects.

Besides, once you get upto 15 seconds you start to get star trails anyway and then your into the (expensive) realms of guided photography. You'll be happy for now with snaps through the eyepiece with your camera set on auto. Just remember to turn the flash off! Theres nothing worse than a million candles burning away your night vision in a blink of an eye!

[McMoon]

Unless your taking photos of very dim DSO's then 4seconds is more than enough to be honest. You can image afocally saturn, jupiter and the moon with just your normal exposures. In fact longer exposures will probably over exposure those brighter objects.

Besides, once you get upto 15 seconds you start to get star trails anyway and then your into the (expensive) realms of guided photography. You'll be happy for now with snaps through the eyepiece with your camera set on auto. Just remember to turn the flash off! Theres nothing worse than a million candles burning away your night vision in a blink of an eye!

Thats great news.Something to cut my teeth on without forking out on dedicated expensive equipment.

[Mick.G.]

Hi Madandy.

You only have to go to the unconventional image section,just to see what Lunator gets up to with a mobile phone. :shock:

So you should get result's,trial & error!

Mick.

[OXO]

Hi Andu,

Whats the Camera Mate?

[McMoon]

Hi Andu,

Whats the Camera Mate?

Its a Nikon coolpix 4800.

Shame really, as if I wanted a compact now, I could have opted for a more feature rich one with some manual over rides like exp and shutter speeds.

Night setting + no flash should give the longest shutter speed poss.

Just need to experiment I guess.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Found this:- http://avoyagetoarcturus.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_avoyagetoarcturus_archive.html

About 3/4 of the way down the page is a handheld shot with your type of camera.

HTH

Captain Chaos

[Jamie]

Andy here is an image that itook of the October 2003 sunspots

with a Cheap £40.00 digi camera

[McMoon]

Found this:- http://avoyagetoarcturus.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_avoyagetoarcturus_archive.html

About 3/4 of the way down the page is a handheld shot with your type of camera.

HTH

Captain Chaos

Nice find 8)

Cheers for that

It just shows how good a pic can be taken with a camera that is so not meant for the job. I wonder where the limitations start to become really noticeable. Planetry..possibly, deep space more than likely but at least the captured images of DSO will be captured to view again and again, would be better than a naked eye view and CAPTURED BY ME

Now....just need this piggin scope

[McMoon]

Andy here is an image that itook of the October 2003 sunspots

with a Cheap £40.00 digi camera

Thats pretty cool too!! :sunny:

So much more can be done than I gave credit for.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

It just shows how good a pic can be taken with a camera that is so not meant for the job.

Very few cameras that cost under two grand are designed to do astro stuff. I don't beleive for a moment that the Toucam was designed to a Spec. that had the word astrophotography in it. You have to play a bit.

Captain Chaos

[McMoon]

It just shows how good a pic can be taken with a camera that is so not meant for the job.

Very few cameras that cost under two grand are designed to do astro stuff. I don't beleive for a moment that the Toucam was designed to a Spec. that had the word astrophotography in it. You have to play a bit.

Captain Chaos

Indeed, a mid range DSLR would be needed to get a decent amateur snap compiled. This I will have to learn from experience and here of course.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

It just shows how good a pic can be taken with a camera that is so not meant for the job.

Very few cameras that cost under two grand are designed to do astro stuff. I don't beleive for a moment that the Toucam was designed to a Spec. that had the word astrophotography in it. You have to play a bit.

Captain Chaos

Indeed, a mid range DSLR would be needed to get a decent amateur snap compiled. This I will have to learn from experience and here of course.

Not quite what I meant to say. With any DSLR you can forget the auto focus autoexposure auto colour auto everything, so they are all created equal. there's the shutter open, light gets to the chip, wait five minutes and it's done. However Canon have a dedicated astro DSLR which has stuff like preview mode off the chip for focussing, extremely low dark noise and other cool stuff. At the price though you would expect it to come with an extension to your house to keep it in.

What i meant to say is that, with very very few exceptions, you have to use kit not optimised for astro stuff. You can get the £20 Zenith SLR to do what a Nikon F5 would do if you use film. there's nothing between the film and the stars (except your 'scope) on either camera, so neither can be better.

Captain Chaos