Planetary picture taking, advice please...

[Midn12e]

Hello all,

I had my first attempt at photographing a planet last night. I would love to hear what you more experienced think at a first attempt and I would be very grateful for tips and hints that you may have.

As Im new to all this I shall detail my equipment etc that I used for these shots.

- Celestron Astromaster 114EQ

- Celestron Universal Barlow X2 T Adaptor (Used for the shots of Venus and close up of the moon)

- Celestron Universal T Adaptor (Used for the wide moon shots)

- Canon 450D EOS 35mm SLR

The weather was cloudy but if you hung about long enough, 4 hours, you occasionally got some prolonged clear patches.

Venus: -

Moon: -

What I'd like to know is how to get the image clearer and indeed if it is possible with my current set up. Any other advice will be gladly welcomed.

Thanks for reading,

Steve.

[brianb]

You certainly should be able to get a sharper image. I suggest you stick to the Moon until you gain a bit of experience; the planets are much more difficult because of the smaller angular size.

The main problem you have seems to be that the focus isn't right. Concentrate on that. The Venus shots also show atmospheric dispersion (it was too low in the sky) and evidence of shutter / mirror shake ... did you try using the mirror lock function to reduce this?

If it makes you feel any better, this is what my first effort at lunar imaging turned out like - it was over 40 years ago, though!