New to astrophotography

[Robzy]

I've been studying photography for a few years now and have recently become extremely interested in astrophotography. I've taken a few shots of the night sky before using just my Canon EOS 450D and a tripod. Unfortunately I never captured anything beyond light polluted skies.

I have just purchased my first telescope (Sky-Watcher 130P) and would like some tips on how to photograph the night sky using a telescope.

A rough exposure time, how to focus are two things that spring to mind that I could use some help with!

[barkis]

Hello Robzy, and welcome to SGL.

The 130 is a handy instrument, and coupled to your Canon, will deliver some nice images.

You need to first attach the camera to the scopes focuser, and will reqiire a T mount etc. to do so. Do you have those accessories already?

Ron.

[barkis]

Hello Robzy, and welcome to SGL.

The 130 is a handy instrument, and coupled to your Canon, will deliver some nice images.

You need to first attach the camera to the scopes focuser, and will reqiire a T mount etc. to do so. Do you have those accessories already?

Ron.

[jgs001]

Hi Robzy.. Do you have the results of your tripod mounted attempts still with details of how you took them ? If so, post them up, I'm sure someone could offer some advice on how to improve them.

As for Prime Focus (SLR on Scope), I can't comment specifically, but I'm sure I read somewhere, that the 130 doesn't quite have enough inward focus travel... but equally, that's been worked around by plenty of people too.

Anyway... In terms of exposure time, you can manage to get good results with very short exposures, 30 to 60 seconds, so as long as the mount is steady enough and can track for that you should be ok. Just bear in mind that you will need lots of exposures to get anything out. There is an ongoing debate over what is the most appropriate ISO to use with various people advocating all sorts of different settings. Personally, I've found that ISO800 gives me my easiest to process and best results.

For focus, with my 450d I use the liveview function on the camera zoomed in as far as I can (10x magnification), with the scope pointed at a bright star, then aim to get the blob as small as you can on the screen. Then take a 30 second exposure and preview at maximum zoom.

I hope that's all of some help.

[Robzy]

Hey, yeah I've managed to get a hold of a t mount and adaptor for my 450D.

I hadn't thought of using Live View before. I completely forgot about that function.

I'll upload my astrophotography shots as soon as possible. (need to search through thousands of photographs:D).

Thanks for the advice!