Astrophotography questions

[mattd]

First off, sorry if I'm asking a question thats probably been asked 1000 times before

I am really interested in trying some Astrophotography. But unfortunately, I don't really have much of a budget to match my interest.

I've got a few questions...

First, is my scope even good enough for use with Astrophotography? Ive got a Celestron Astromaster 130EQ with a motor drive

Second, how would I go about attaching a camera? (yes, I really know nothing about it )

And finally, what kind of price am I looking at for a camera that can be used for Astrophotography? I'm not looking to take really amazing images, but it would just be nice to have a picture record of all the things I've found and seen

But like I said, I'm on a really tight budget

Thanks in advance for your help

Matt

[Cornelius Varley]

It depends on where you interest lay in astrophotography. If you wish to photograph DSO,s for instance, you will find that the EQ2 mount does not track accurately enough to allow the long exposures required. Also the 650/130 telescope has a problem with focussing with a DLSR attached in place of an eyepiece, the focusser cannot be moved inwards enough to allow a DLSR to achieve focus. This can be solved by the use of a barlow lens to bring the focus point further out. For lunar imaging the simplest way is to point a compact digital camera down the eyepiece and take photographs of what the eyepiece sees, there are brackets available that will hold the camera infront of the eyepiece to make it easier. With this method you will be able to take a short video film with the camera and then process the video in Registax to stack the best frames of the video and improve the final image. If you use a DSLR the body of the camera can be attached to the telescope's focuser, using an adapter and barlow, turning the telescope into a giant telephoto lens. If you have a laptop or computer that you can take outside it is possible to use a modified webcam such as a Philips Toucam Pro or a Celestron Neximage to take videos of the moon or planets and then process the video in Registax.

Peter