Advice needed

[AndyM]

I've taken quite a few photos of the moon lately by pointing my camera through the eyepiece clicking the shutter and hoping for the best. The results so far have been pretty good but I want to take things further and try some deep sky stuff and obviously this method just aint gonna work!

The equipment I have at the moment is a 70mm Skywatcher refractor, EQ1 mount and a Fuji Finepix 440 digicam.

Question is, where do I go from here? Do I just buy a bit of bracketry to hold the camera steady at the eyepiece or would I get better results going down the webcam route? Or, are my scope and camera up to the job even?

As you've probably guessed I've not much idea on this subject so please type slowly and in words of two syllables or less!!

Andy.

[blinky]

I aint no expert (and I am sure some real experts will disagree with me) but I reckon a 70mm Refractor is not going to pull in enough light for DSO. Also the camera will not be sensitive enough either. You really need something like a modified ToUCam Webcam to start taking DSO images.

[Andrew*]

... not to mention a stronger mount, and driven to counteract Earth's rotation...

I can already see the bank balance falling... It's not a cheap hobby!

Andrew

[FLO]

Andy,

Deep-sky imaging is asking too much from your current set-up.

Enjoy the Skywatcher 70 for what it is - a nice 'grab & go' telescope

[lunator]

Andy

Stick too the Moon and bright planets.

I have an 200mm scope and a Fuji A607 camera and I have managed to get a hint of M42 so anything fainter is going to be very hard work.

Cheers

Ian