Moon & Astro photography

DK32

Hi all,

The following was taken this evening 16-01-2011 *(Best viewed full size)



Taken using this setup:


Do any of you have experience in taking photo's through your telescope?
What are your experiences with using a T-adapter?

If any of you could share your setup details, types of in camera settings that you use etc... would also be very useful.

With the T-Adapter I have the 25mm eyepiece from the Meade scope inserted into the T-adapter. I then use the camera's viewfinder to assist in focusing on the moon. Whilst I'm not disappointed in the outcome from this evenings experiment, I would like to learn how to get sharper images and if possible improve the quality of the images. I noticed a fair bit of movement from the scope while in the garden tonight, mild breeze didn't help either.

Long term I'd like to be able to use the built in star tracking feature to make star trail photo's or timed sequences of photo's over several hours.

Apologies in advance if this is not posted in the correct area.
I am a keen participant over on the photography forum but I figured the people in the know would probably be telescope users.

Any help is much appreciated,
Dan

lord lucan

Can't answer your question unfortunately but that's an awesome photo,incredible detail. Thanks for sharing.:)

dmcdona

Dan - astrophotography is a huge subject. Equipment, techniques, software etc.

There are many astrophotographers on the IFAS board: http://www.irishastronomy.org/

Personally, I use a high-end CCD imager on a 14" SCT to carry out scientific work. There are many others on the IFAS boards you are doing exactly what you would like to do. And they are never shy in giving advice and tips.

Hope that helps
Dave

dbran

Hi

Adding to what Dave said, the South Dublin Astronomy Club and the Irish Astronomical Society have observing sessions near the sugarloaf in Co Wicklow on clear weekend evenings. You are most welcome to come along. They are usually advertised on the IFAS site and also here also.

Kind Regards

dbran

peterako

Very nice pic!

The guys at IFAS (www.irishastronomy.org) are extremely helpful.

I'm starting to experiment with a T2 adapter and my DSLR.

Might be more useful for Deep Sky though.....with a Webcam for Solar System.

But I don't know yet

Clear skies,
Peter

RichieC

Beautiful photo, DK32.

would a 600mm - 35 mm equivalent - lens be enough for astrophotography??

hal9000

Deleted User wrote: »

would a 600mm - 35 mm equivalent - lens be enough for astrophotography??

Depends what you want to do!
I think for the moon with a 35mm or a full frame sensor the lens would need to be about 2000mm for the moon to fill the frame. I took the image below with a C-6 SCT (which would be around 1500mm IIRC) and a APS-C camera so the moon is a bit bigger than the frame @ 1500mm (didnt get a chance to take anymore pics as it started pouring from the heavens 2mins after that shot!:D)

Iancar29

My ATTEMPT with just my Lumix tz 5. ha

Tea drinker

dbran wrote: »

Hi

Adding to what Dave said, the South Dublin Astronomy Club and the Irish Astronomical Society have observing sessions near the sugarloaf in Co Wicklow on clear weekend evenings. You are most welcome to come along. They are usually advertised on the IFAS site and also here also.

Kind Regards

dbran

I used to park on the high road right adjacent to the sugarloaf. Just a short walk with the scope off the road but sometimes disturbed by passing cars. Where do the club setup?

OP, you have a little noise in that image? maybe fiddle with the noise reduction. A shorty barlow will double the magnification (and shakes) without adding much more strain on the focusser.
Many people use webcams, they are pretty good. The smaller chip means larger image scale.

cocoshovel

Just stumbled across this thread. Thought I would post my lame attempt of photographing the moon tonight. My 2nd time ever taking pictures off the auto setting :rolleyes:

Prenderb

Cold! I know I can improve this one, but for handheld it's not too bad. Love the setup DK32, and HAL9000 - great photo!

cocoshovel

You must have one steady hand!

ceejay

I originally posted these in the Jupiter thread, thought they might be appropriate to re-post here:


Crater Tyco:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciaranwalsh/5365759040/in/photostream/


Mare Humorum & Crater Gassendi:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciaranwalsh/5365759978/in/photostream/


Mare Tranquilitas, Mare Crisium and Crater Proclus:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciaranwalsh/5365147491/in/photostream/


These were taken the other night with a Celestron NexStar 4SE, a NexImage CCD, and processed with Registax.

ceejay

I also took this shot of the moon through the eyepiece of the telescope using my Panasonic Lumix DMC-TX10. I just held it up to the eyepiece, so there's a bit of blurring. I'm wondering if it's worth investing in one of those universal camera mounts for this kind of thing (not a T-adapter), since the TZ10 has a lot of manual controls and could maybe be used for some long exposure deep-sky photography. Has anyone used these kinds of mounts with any success?

Crescent Moon:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciaranwalsh/5372472124/

hal9000

hal9000 wrote: »

Depends what you want to do!
I think for the moon with a 35mm or a full frame sensor the lens would need to be about 2000mm for the moon to fill the frame. I took the image below with a C-6 SCT (which would be around 1500mm IIRC) and a APS-C camera so the moon is a bit bigger than the frame @ 1500mm

Am heading to the Ozzie outback soon - real outback now over a 1,000 miles from the nearest city as the crow flies! There will be absolutely no noise pollution with the benefit of clear unpolluted skies at night.

I was hoping to get some experience doing some astro shots before I go. Potential for some good shots. I have a wide angle lens which should get some good milky way shots. Im hoping to get some Nebula/Galaxies in the distance shots.

Any ideas on equatorial mounts? How cheap can you go before that arent any good! I have a 80 - 300mm 35mm equivalent lens and was considering getting a 2x teleconverter to make it 600mm if it would give some half decent shots

calchas

with a 600mm lens you should be able to catch the jovian moons, I can with a 1 second exposure at 300mm over Dublin. With the camera in general you can look for lots of short or relatively bright astro phenomena: sunset green flash; constelations (should look amazing in the outback); planets, satelite trails; iridium flares; meteors etc.
If you add tracking on some sort of mount you can do nice widfield longer exposures and start seeing some deep sky ojects: andromeda etc. See astro-track or make a barndoor tracker on the cheap.

There are a few good books on dslr astro photography if you want to delve deeper.

Regards
Calchas

mickger844posts

Lately since getting a Sony NEX 3 DSLR camera i have got interested in Astrophotography.
I did a bit of research on the net but have found it difficult to get good quality shots. I have tried many different settings, ISO, exposure times and alike but i was wondering what are the best settings for taking pics of stars and galaxies? This is one shot i took the other night of Jupiter to give an idea what kind of results i have been getting so far. Any tips would be very helpful.

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/3848/dsc01156e.jpg

Tea drinker

unless you attach that DSLR to a scope you won't get the image size you want. Even then you are better making an avi and stacking the frames in registax. Alternately look into a philips webcam for astrophotography.
Needs a scope and laptop obviously.

sajjjht

Hi calchas
Any chance of you posting the titles of the dslr astro photo books?
Thanks

calchas

sajjjht wrote: »

Hi calchas
Any chance of you posting the titles of the dslr astro photo books?
Thanks

Google is pretty handy, In the case you don't know of it yet:
http://www.google.com/search?source=ie7&q=astrophotography+dslr&rls=com.microsoft:en-ie:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7GGLL_en

As for books:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Astrophotography-Practical-Amateur-Astronomy/dp/0521700817/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295905934&sr=8-1#_

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Astrophotography-Guide-Capturing-Cosmos/dp/1933952164/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295906648&sr=8-2#_ (I don't have this one, but the content page looks ok)

Happy searching

Calchas

sajjjht

Thanks for the reply calchas.
I would think most people on here know of google, it was just when you said "There are a few good books on dslr astro photography if you want to delve deeper." I thought you may have some specific relevant knowledge on the subject as against the hit/miss/miss of a search engine.:D:D

calchas

I have the first book,

However:
For a start try wide field shots with a standard lens. A tripod is close to a must, although there are ways to keep a camera still with cheaper suppors like handy wall tops etc. For long exposures a remote shutter release is also handy, but easier to do without: eiter use the timer (so you don't jog the fram when hitting the release) or a card to cover the lens while you press the shutter. Most cameras require a remote release for >30s exposure.

After that try high Iso shots of areas with deep sky objects. You should start to get good signs of things you can't easily see by eye before you get significant trails.

Then try star trails. Just open the shutter and wait (need to be beware of dew etc).

Then try capturing Iridium flares by opening the shutter just before they become visible and keeping it open through the flare.

Other things to try capturing would be: green-flash at sunset; noctiluminescent cloud; meteors.

Just go out and experiment with angles, iso, exposure, aparture.

After that it's probably time to try tracking. I gave things to look up for that earlier.

For use with a telescope: snap through the eye-piece (afocal): get a T adapter and an 1.25" or 2" nose piece and use prime focus. Or just use the mount and piggy back the camera. For the moon an planets a DSLR is of less use than it is for wide field and deep sky, but that's a whole massive subject of it's own.

Just go and try something. It's great fun even if you don't get magazine quality shots.

Calchas

P.S. most of the best nights are perishingly cold, so get gloves
P.P.S about a year ago someone posted a fantastic shot of Orion in this forum, it was not tracked. Might be worth searching for.

sajjjht

OK thanks for that, next clear night I am going to stick on my 300mm lens aim at Orion and push the iso from 400 to 6400 at 10 sec shutter, f16 and see what I get? I will post it if anything worth while comes out.:rolleyes:

clln

What wonderful pictures, please keep posting them no matter how humble you may think they are,they are beautiful to me and i love that you all take the trouble to take them and appreciate how cold and lonely it must be at times while doing so.

be assured they are very much appreciated by this poster,really great work,so share it!:)

calchas

sajjt
I'd start with a 50mm lens then go looking with the 300mm. Other wise you should be on a good start

Bohrio

Not much but I am pretty happy with this picture, I took it with my camera phone so dont expect much!

mickger844posts

Bohrio wrote: »

Not much but I am pretty happy with this picture, I took it with my camera phone so dont expect much!

Camera phone :eek: Great shot whatever way you took it.

Bohrio

mickger844posts wrote: »

Camera phone :eek: Great shot whatever way you took it.

Thanks

I just placed the camera lens on top of the eyepiece and voilá!

I was very impressed with the result!

mickger844posts

Bohrio wrote: »

Thanks

I just placed the camera lens on top of the eyepiece and voilá!

I was very impressed with the result!

You used a telescope, was thinking no camera phone would have a zoom that good Out of interest what telescope do you have??

Bohrio

mickger844posts wrote: »

You used a telescope, was thinking no camera phone would have a zoom that good Out of interest what telescope do you have??

oooopss!! sorry, imagine if my mobile could take pictures like that!

I have a celestron XLT150, havent used it in a while, missing it lately

calchas

calchas wrote: »

with a 600mm lens you should be able to catch the jovian moons, I can with a 1 second exposure at 300mm over Dublin. With the camera in general you can look for lots of short or relatively bright astro phenomena: sunset green flash; constelations (should look amazing in the outback); planets, satelite trails; iridium flares; meteors etc.
If you add tracking on some sort of mount you can do nice widfield longer exposures and start seeing some deep sky ojects: andromeda etc. See astro-track or make a barndoor tracker on the cheap.

There are a few good books on dslr astro photography if you want to delve deeper.

Regards
Calchas

thanks a million for the info! If I have any success i`ll come back here and post some!

I might consider a better DSLR or maybe just a model up with image stabilisation for longer exposures!

Anyone any idea on the cheapest equatorial mounts? This seems to me to be a once in a lifetime opportunity with zero noise pollution and clear skies!

calchas

To my understanding (I'm ready to be corrected) is that image stab is only for terestial shots, not for astro shots, No t enough data to stabalise to.

clln

141_Oscar_Mike wrote: »

Captured this while in flight to the Canary Islands with a Lumix. Gonna invest in a camera mount for my telescope in the near future. (Im a noob).

WOW!!!!

Donegal Skies

Hi,

I have a section on my website in the basics and getting started in the astrophotography Here: http://www.donegalskies.com/tutorials

I also have a gallery showing my astro images and some techical details on the images here: http://www.donegalskies.com/astro-images.

Keep up the good work. Always great to see people in Ireland getting into this hobby.

Brendan
www.DonegalSkies.com

clln

Donegal Skies wrote: »

I also have a gallery showing my astro images Always great to see people in Ireland getting into this hobby.

Brendan

Hi Brendan i have had a look at some of Your images and they are superb !especially since you are so relatively new to it,after all images are what spurns people to stay interested in astronomy and space.

Astronomy Ireland is not liked by a lot of people i know, due to its greed.
so i hope when you have new updates you will let boards know.
when i have more time online i will look at all your images but i love what i have seen so far!

Donegal Skies

Hi Clln,

That's certainly understandable! Thanks for your kind words. I will certainly post any new content I add to the site here on boards.ie. There is also a thread on an article I wrote about possible auroras (northern lights) over Ireland in the next few nights. Here is the link, if you're interested.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056167637

Brendan
www.DonegalSkies.com

clln

Donegal Skies wrote: »

Hi Clln,

That's certainly understandable! Thanks for your kind words. I will certainly post any new content I add to the site here on boards.ie. There is also a thread on an article I wrote about possible auroras (northern lights) over Ireland in the next few nights. Here is the link, if you're interested.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056167637

Brendan
www.DonegalSkies.com

I will look forward to that Donegal Skies,afraid there is no hope of seeing the aurora borealis at least tonight.
no clear skys here!:)
thank you though.

DK32

Seeing as this thread is still going strong I thought I'd pop in an update.
I took this the other night up at Glendalough

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=70446018&postcount=996

Details:
Canon 5Dmk2 with Canon EF24-70L lens at 24mm f/2.8
ISO 6400
Exposure time 25 seconds.

I'm delighted with this as it's my first time trying out this kind of shot. I certainly intend to get out there and take more.

hal9000

Deleted User wrote: »

thanks a million for the info! If I have any success i`ll come back here and post some!

I might consider a better DSLR or maybe just a model up with image stabilisation for longer exposures!

Anyone any idea on the cheapest equatorial mounts? This seems to me to be a once in a lifetime opportunity with zero noise pollution and clear skies!

make sure to turn image stabilisation off, as it will introduce wobble to the image (IS will assume that the camera is unstable even though its on a mount) not sure about posting shop links but...
http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/index.php/cat/c20_Mounts

---

Equatorial.html

cocoshovel

Fantastic view of the moon tonight. You could make out its full shape and the shadow of Earth blocking it. It was great but I could pick it up on my camera.

Click on the file to view the pic I took. Nothing special, Im not very good with the camera and have done no processing with this. (large pic)

peterako

Lovely last few nights

Here's a shot of the Moon (to keep on topic) I managed to get on 1st March.

As usual with my Orion Optics 8" F4 Newt, old CG5, but this time with my DSLR and a T adapter:



I'm still (and will always be) learning. DSLR seems a bit more challenging than Video Capture -> image....

Clear skies!!

Peter

drdeadlift

Got this tonight with my eos400,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tweedjacketandapipe/6875881560/in/photostream

Pearsem

Venus, Jupiter and the Moon from my backyard, just after sunset yesterday.

Taken with a Nikon d70 with Nikkor 70-300mm vr.

I'm finding it very tricky to get a decent shot. There is always a bit of blur despite last night being calm, having a decent tripod, having a VR Lens and using the timed release. Also my moons are always either under or overexposed. Any tips?

Tzetze

Here's a moon from 1/2/12. Sorry to post such an old one. Hoping to get another shot of it this evening...

Tzetze

I got some shots of last night's moon before getting to work on imaging a DSO for the night.

This was 75 shots. ISO200, 1/30s. Stacked in Registax, tweaked in PS CS5.
Canon 450D, SW ED80.

ZeRoY

Superb photo TzeTze!!

Here's my best attempt so far, no telescope, just Kodak Z990 at full zoom, fast shutter on a tripod and small exposure/contrast retouched in Lightroom - taken 26/03/12 around 11pm



I since been able to take shots without the tripod, just handheld but not with the clarity the above shot has... Will try Registax next.

Tzetze

Aha! We meet again Mr. Bond ZeRoY! :pac:

maddogcollins

[IMG][/img] 67/366 - Moon

Taken on my D5000 with 55-200 kit lens.

ThatDrGuy

Great pics everyone. Just got a quick snap of one of my favorite craters
Eratosthenes:

Tzetze

ThatDrGuy wrote: »

Great pics everyone. Just got a quick snap of one of my favorite craters
Eratosthenes:

Very nice level of detail there TDG! Was that just your SCT without focal reducer? You could build a very detailed mosaic image of the moon with multiple images like that.