How to take Astronomy Pics?????

Bakat

Hello All! I am sort of new here; I've been lurking around for some time and learned more than I could have believed from reading everyone’s posts. This site is rather like camera porn for me.

I actually need a little help. My retired father lives with us and has become quite enamored with my D50 for use in taking pictures of stuff thru his telescope. He has a large (in my opinion) Meade telescope and he takes the pictures thru the eye piece while holding the camera. I have been looking at accessories to make this easier for him.

For $35 I can buy a thing that sort of clamps onto his telescope and holds the camera via the 1/4 fitting on the bottom where the tri-pod attaches.

For somewhere between $150-$200 I can buy this thing http://www.scopetronix.com/ that mounts to my camera lens and basically makes it a part of his telescope.

Has anyone here purchased anything like this or have any advice?

Thank you for your help and for making this such a great forum!

Kat

DanielB

*shrug* i don't know anything about astrophotography, but the item you pointed out i think it would be worth the money

Jamoke

Bakat wrote:

Hello All! I am sort of new here; I've been lurking around for some time and learned more than I could have believed from reading everyone’s posts. This site is rather like camera porn for me.

I think a lot of people might be able to relate to that...

I bought a T-Mount for a telescope. But I bought the wrong diameter, and it doesn't sit quite right on the end of the telescope. So one recommendation I have is to make sure the diameters are the same. There are a ton of different size telescopes out there (At least the cheap ones that I own) Perhaps some of the nicer telescopes are all standard, but my adapter is about 2 mm to large for my zies spotter scope, and about 7 mm to large for my 70x-300x telescope.

Another thing is that I'm sure there's multiple adapters so I could modify mine to a different diameter.... Just be sure to check the sizes. And read the return policy carefully.

Bakat

"I bought a T-Mount for a telescope. But I bought the wrong diameter, and it doesn't sit quite right on the end of the telescope. "


Wow, you've already lost me... What's a T-Mount?
Kat

Jamoke

Bakat wrote:

Wow, you've already lost me... What's a T-Mount?

http://photonotes.org/cgi-bin/entry.pl?id=Tmount

Turns out I wasn't even that familiar with it. I just thought It was the standard connection piece between a camera and a telescope - but it turns out It's a system originally setup by Tamron. Specific diameter and thread pitch to try to standardize the connections.

But from T-Mount to each eyepiece of each telescope looks to be possibly a different adapter. And those are the parts that I don't have. The cool thing about the T-Mount is it mounts onto most DSLR mounts. You can order them for Nikon, Canon, etc. So it's a physical connection to my camera (20D, and 5D)

Perhaps somebody else knows from T-Mount to a telescope what pieces are required...

Jamoke

http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlineCatalog/Browse.cfm?categoryid=883

whole bunch of related products... T-Mount to other things... So Looks like Once you get a T-mount for your camera - the Telescope should have a connection that is T-mount compatible (From your eyepiece to a 42mm T-Mount)


DSLR --> T-Mount --> Adapter --> Telescope

ian408

I have one of the screw on adapters from ScopeTronix for my Nikon CoolPix
950. It works well.

One thing you need to remember tho and that is the camera weighs significantly
more than just the eyepiece. It's possible that a tracking mount, especially
with something like a Celestron Nexstar 8, might not track as well with the camera
mounted.

ScopeTronix and Orion Telescopes (www.telescope.com) have some cool
stuff for astronomy. Orion offers a mini-equatorial mount that will hold a
camera or small scope. For around $100 you can have an equatorial mount
with electronic drive. How cool is that for astrophotography?

Good luck!

Bodwick

Bakat wrote:

He has a large (in my opinion) Meade telescope and he takes the pictures thru the eye piece while holding the camera. I have been looking at accessories to make this easier for him.
Has anyone here purchased anything like this or have any advice?

Kat

A number of points here.
First thing is to get the correct model details of the scope.

You are talking about using the eyepiece still attached to the scope. This needs:
A tube adapter that slides over the eyepiece and can be secured. In this case to the D50. You don't use a lens just the camera and use a T-ring and type of T-mount that slips over the eye piece allowing you to directly project the image through the eyepiece onto the sensor.

or

You secure the camera with a bracket and using an attached lens just shoot the image seen through the camera viewer. (Whats being done now?)

or

To attach an SLR camera directly to a scope and use the scope as a lens without an eyepiece you need:
A T-Adapter - this fits directly to the back of the scope(No eye piece)
A T-Mount - this fits onto the T-Adapter and leads to the camera.
A T-Ring - this fits onto the T-Mount and is the ring that fits onto your camera(just like a lens)

Thats three different ways of shooting the last needing three 'bits' to complete the setup. All must be correct. Suitable for birds or space.

Does that make sense? Sunday morning ramblings...

I can take some snaps of these bits or find them on the web. I have Celestron stuff but it's much the same as Meade.

Bod.

KA0TVO

Check here as well.

http://www.telescope.com/jump.jsp?itemID=29&itemType=CATEGORY&iMainCat=6&iSubCat=29&page=2&itemList=&oldList=

MrBook2

Bodwick wrote:

....

To attach an SLR camera directly to a scope and use the scope as a lens without an eyepiece you need:
A T-Adapter - this fits directly to the back of the scope(No eye piece)
A T-Mount - this fits onto the T-Adapter and leads to the camera.
A T-Ring - this fits onto the T-Mount and is the ring that fits onto your camera(just like a lens)

....

Bod.

If the scope is sturdy enough to hold position/tracking with the SLR attached, this is the way to go. Lines it up perfectly and doesn't add any uneccessary lenses into the equation.

Once you get into this, you may quickly hit a wall; mirror slap. The D50 does not have a mirror lock up mode to actually take pictures. This can be a problem. When you press the shutter button, the mirror has to kick out of the way. This will shake the camera/telescope and result in slightly blurry pictures. If your exposure is faster than about 1/60th, the picture is over before the shake is much of a problem. If it is longer than about 1 second, then the vibrations damp out before they are much of a problem. If you are in the danger zone between those, it can be a problem. Just something to keep in mind.

--Aaron