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My first attempt at Astro-Photography

Very nice. Eyepiece projection? Or did you have a T-ring mount or whatever and have the camera attached to the focuser?
 
It was eyepiece, yeah. I tried attaching the camera to the focuser(fits right in) but then I saw the secondary mirror mount in the images.
 
Stupendous Man said:
It was eyepiece, yeah. I tried attaching the camera to the focuser(fits right in) but then I saw the secondary mirror mount in the images.
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You need to remove the camera lens and place the film at the primary focus.

Timed exposures on a dobsonian are tricky. You need to control non-linear rotation on 3 axis (unless you happen to be at +/- 90º latitude).
 
I'm about to try something with my telescope: using a camcorder to shoot a second or two, then you throw away any bad frames (from atmospheric turbulence or whatever), then use software to "stack" the frames into a single image. I've got an equatorial mount, but no CCD (except the 3 in my camcorder).
 
Most camcorders aren't designed to record low light imagery. And depending on the seeing conditions and optics you use, you probably will have atmospheric waves continuously crossing the field of vision. If the software is good, it can correct for tracking errors. If it's really good it predicts the atmospheric disturbance and calculates the corrections for each pixel.

At the extreme end, the technique is called Speckle_imagingWP because all they record is the speckle of a few photons in each frame.
 
You'll get pretty fair results doing eyepiece projection as long as the subject is bright. Nice Moon shots, nice planets, the Red Spot, Saturn's Rings, and so forth. You'll find that any exposure over a second or so will blur in a Dob unless it's driven in altitude, azimuth, and rotation. Equatorial mounts are pretty much a requirement for long exposures, and they need to be high-quality ones for the very best.

ETA: Very nice for a first effort, particularly on an instrument that is as challenging for astrophotography as a Dob. Try bumping the magnification on Saturn, but watch out you don't run out of light and get the exposure too long.
 
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I've got a new telescope, and I'm dying to do some phoography with it. :)
 
And I am pi**ed because the environmental light is way too much where I live, no way a telescope would make any sense. :mad:

Nice photographs, Stupendous Man!
 
wahrheit said:
And I am pi**ed because the environmental light is way too much where I live, no way a telescope would make any sense. :mad:
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Same here. Like trying to look through soup. :mad:

Anyone know where I can get plans for an amateur radio-telescope?
 
TX50 said:
Anyone know where I can get plans for an amateur radio-telescope?
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Not sure if it is in your budget, but this one is a real hottie:

arec.jpg


:D
 
Well, actually, there are some people doing some pretty good planetary photography from apartment buildings in cities. Not in the suburbs, either. Planets are pretty bright. So you might give it a try; I think a very few star clusters might be visible too, although unlikely to be fit photographic subjects. If you limit your ambitions, you might be surprised what you can do with modern technology. And if you feel like getting a bit activist, you might try joining the International Dark Sky Society.

ETA: Look at this. Note that this was done with a webcam.
 
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TX50 said:
Same here. Like trying to look through soup. :mad:

Anyone know where I can get plans for an amateur radio-telescope?
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You own a TV with an aerial? Then that is a radio telescope. Procedure
1. Un tune your TV so all you get is a hiss.
2. Pull out the aerial. Any difference in the sound is from space.

Been many years since I tried this.
 
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