My First Moon Photo

[DemonicOmelette]

Just got my scope today, put it together, pointed it at the moon, and shot this through the lens! Very first exposure, I'm well impressed!

I'm sure it's "just another moon photo" to all of you, but to me it's something quite special!

[barkis]

That's quite good. When you say you shot it through the lens, do you mean the camera had a lens attached, and you held it by hand to the eyepiece?

Ron.

[DemonicOmelette]

Yup. Olympus e400 DSLR, with the standard (17-45mm) lens, and held it up to my 32mm plossl. Hard to get it to focus right!

Is there an easier way?

Would my mount support such a heavy camera?

-eli

[legion48]

That's an excellent first image. Well done.

[barkis]

The method you employed there is known as Afocal, which you probably knew.

Attaching the camera to the scope physically to do afocal photography can be done with the right adaptors. It will depend on your scope as you mentioned. The combined weight is a bit prohibitive. The better option is probably Barlow projection. A 2x Barlow will give you a longer focal ratio, and you can remove the lens from the camera. Of course you will need a T Mount. The longer ratio will increase the image size.

If you were interested in the projection method, you could have a word with FLO regarding the adapter you need for your camera, and of course you need a 2x Barlow lens. The Barlow is a negative lens that serves to double your telescopes focal length. There is eyepiece projection too, which does not require the camera lens fitted either.

Ron.

[Doc]

Eli for a afocal image that is very good.

You should be very pleased with it.

[DemonicOmelette]

My scope is a Skywatcher 130PM, on an EQ2 mount, so I don't know if it's beefy enough to also hold quite a heavy DSLR. I have a little Olympus compact aswell, but when I tried to use that I always wound up with a dark spot in the middle from the secondary mirror. Also, with the compact I could not do long exposures...

I've already got the 2x barlow that came with the scope, but I've heard it's not the best quality... Seemed alright to me though!

Do you know of an article somewhere explaining the ins and outs of afocal?

-eli

[jgs001]

For an afocal image and your first go with a brand new scope... That's briliant.

[barkis]

Eli, You are right about the 130 and the weight issue of the afocal setup. If it was attached to your drawtube, it would give loads of problems with balance, but keeping it steady during exposures too..

There is another way, but it is a fiddle. If you have a tripod for your camera, you could attach your camera with lens in place. Put in a medium power eyepiece and get the best focus you can. Then try to get the camera lens as close to the eyepiece as you can without touching it. your camera should be on manual focus, and the lens set to infinity. Depending on the phase of the moon, take a couple of exposures to see what your focus is like. Operating the camera is best done with the infra red remote if you have one, this will lessen the chance of touching and moving the camera or scope. The infra red is a line of sight control, so you will need to see the detector to point at.If the scope drive is running, you may get enough test exposures to verify the focus is good. When you are happy with the focus, take some images at different exposure times, depending on the moon phase as I said earlier. the larger the lit portion of the moon, the shorter the exposures. Keep a record of what you do, it will help if you do it all again during the neaxt lunation..

Set the ISO to 100 - 200. before you start too.

I know this is a fiddly way to do it, but it does work this method if you have the patience to do it.

Ron.

[qcdougn]

Eli,

Welcome to the astrophotography Lunar-tic group. Now that you have your first pic under your belt, you'll keep on going. Well done for this first one. You've done excellent to get the focus as well as you did with your particular set-up and camera.

Nice job...

Doug