Using "Other" kind lenses...

Stephen! · January 24, 2004

Since my digital camera has no means of attaching an external lens (and before the digital I was too poor to buy anything more than an 80-200 Zoom for my Pentax) I've had to learn how to improvise over the years. I've taken to using spotting scopes and binoculars to bump up the power of my lens. This picture was taken on a Whale Watching cruise off the south coast of Oahu. We are about three miles off shore and you can make out the cars on the road along the tree line.

Anybody else ever try this?

cmr164 · January 24, 2004

Stephen! wrote:

Since my digital camera has no means of attaching an external lens (and before the digital I was too poor to buy anything more than an 80-200 Zoom for my Pentax) I've had to learn how to improvise over the years. I've taken to using spotting scopes and binoculars to bump up the power of my lens. This picture was taken on a Whale Watching cruise off the south coast of Oahu. We are about three miles off shore and you can make out the cars on the road along the tree line.

Anybody else ever try this?

"Digiscoping" I used to do that quite a bit but mostly with film cameras.

On the otherhand I did hookup my Nextstar5 Celestron to the DCS520 for the next shot.

In the next shot you can see the clock tower (called the Custom House) on the extreme left. The two shots were both from the balcony of my then Boston apt.

wxwax · January 24, 2004

Here's a web site with digiscoping shots.

Stephen! · January 24, 2004

cmr164 wrote:

"Digiscoping" I used to do that quite a bit but mostly with film cameras.

I have a stack of prints somewhere... Haven't done it a lot with the digi...

cmr164 wrote:

On the otherhand I did hookup my Nextstar5 Celestron to the DCS520 for the next shot.

Does that require some kind of special attachment?

wxwax · January 24, 2004

Stephen! wrote:

I have a stack of prints somewhere... Haven't done it a lot with the digi...

Does that require some kind of special attachment?

Click on the digiscoping link, click on Information/Adapters to see how others do it.

Stephen! · January 24, 2004

wxwax wrote:

Click on the digiscoping link, click on Information/Adapters to see how others do it.

Heh... Which brings me back to my "cheap/poor" side... Correcting for the exchange rate, the non-thread adapter I'd have to use is $178... I think I'll stick with holding it all together a little while longer... :bash

That did, however, give me an idea on how I can build my own attachment to hook it up to my wife's bazillion power telescope... Thanks!

cmr164 · January 24, 2004

Stephen! wrote:

I have a stack of prints somewhere... Haven't done it a lot with the digi...

Does that require some kind of special attachment?

I did a whole series from first nest to first flight of chicks of some peregrine falcons in Boston. I was living on the 38th floor so even though they were on the 25th floor roof of a building some distance away, I was able to shoot right into the nest. I had the camera/telescope setup in the window for a couple of months. (not the nextstar5 but an 80mm refractor from edmunds)

There are 2 main types of attachments. One uses eypiece projection and the other skips the eypiece. The 1st is more magnification and the 2nd is better optically.

ian408 · January 24, 2004

Stephen! wrote:

I have a stack of prints somewhere... Haven't done it a lot with the digi...

Does that require some kind of special attachment?

Something like this for a coolpix from ScopeTronix (it's what I am using):

There are "T" rings and other adapters available.

Ian

Fleas · January 24, 2004

Adaptor
Although my Sony 707 is threaded I use a Scopetronix digital camera adaptor on my C-8 for this cropped picture of a half moon

Stephen! · January 24, 2004

Fleas wrote:

Although my Sony 707 is threaded I use a Scopetronix digital camera adaptor on my C-8 for this cropped picture of a half moon

Absolutely outstanding...

Alright... Now y'all have gone and done it... I'm gonna have to break out the wife's telescope soon as this crappy weather (rain and 60 mph winds couple nights ago with more to come this weekend) gets out of here...

We'll see how well I can do with just handheld alignment... With the power on that thing perhaps I can tell NASA what's wrong with their Mars lander...

Stephen! · January 24, 2004

Fleas wrote:

Although my Sony 707 is threaded I use a Scopetronix digital camera adaptor on my C-8 for this cropped picture of a half moon

Here's one I took through a telescope they've got set up about ½ way to the top of Mauna Kea to look at sunspots... It was a very difficult shot because it was around noon and the auto-tracking telescope was nearly vertical. The non-angled eyepiece was abut 18" off the ground... Made for a very uncomfortable position to try and align everything just so...

Stephen! · January 25, 2004

Fleas wrote:

Although my Sony 707 is threaded I use a Scopetronix digital camera adaptor on my C-8 for this cropped picture of a half moon

Alrighty then... Here's my uncropped (but reduced), handheld through-the-telescope shot of tonight's moon... Turned out okay but it would have been EVER so much easier if I had a way to align it for me. There's about ½ second delay in what I see on the LCD so it's difficult to get it lined up *JUST SO*... expecially with mosquitos biting the hell outa me!

wxwax · January 25, 2004

That's pretty cool, Stephen. Really good detail. I'd like to see what it looks like on a full moon.

Stephen! · January 25, 2004

wxwax wrote:

That's pretty cool, Stephen. Really good detail. I'd like to see what it looks like on a full moon.

Thanks... I plan on trying... gonna have to do it some place other than my back yard, though. Too many trees. By the time the full phase rolls around I should have come up with a mounting method...

Stephen! · February 7, 2004

wxwax wrote:

That's pretty cool, Stephen. Really good detail. I'd like to see what it looks like on a full moon.

Here ya go! Didn't turn out too bad, actually... This is an unretouched (no cropping, no resizing, no color/contrast/brightness adjustmen, no nutin') image... I managed to get the color like that by using the "Tungsten" setting for the White Balance. The EXIF data should still be there if anyone's interested...

Oh... and those spots in the background aren't noise, they're stars...

wxwax · February 7, 2004

That looks like a 7-iron on the South Massif.

Tremendous detail, nice job. That's still handheld?

wxwax · February 7, 2004

Compare yours to one taken from Apollo 16.

Stephen! · May 30, 2009

wxwax wrote:

That looks like a 7-iron on the South Massif.

Tremendous detail, nice job. That's still handheld?

Wow... Guess I missed this reply. So Solly...

Yes, that was still hand held up against the eyepiece of the telescope.

MikeK · May 30, 2009

Cool!

A few years back I was into this type of thing, I used to hook up my Meade ETX-90EC to a Nikon Coolpix 995 with a ScopeTronix 18mm Eyepiece adapter.

Here's some of the pictures I took. Moon shots were easy, planets required multiple shots stacked together.

http://www.bourbonstreetphotography.com/gallery/7763849_VSFMq

Cheers,

JAG · May 30, 2009

Stephen! wrote:

Wow... Guess I missed this reply. So Solly...

Yes, that was still hand held up against the eyepiece of the telescope.

Wow...where you been for 5 years??

Impressive shots though...

Stephen! · May 31, 2009

JAG wrote:

Wow...where you been for 5 years??

Hehe.. Been busy. Lessee... Since Feb '04 I've got my Seaplane license, my Glider license, and my Instrument-Airplane certificate. I retired from the Navy, took the wife for a 16,000+ mile, 50-state (we started in Hawaii), 3-Province motorcycle ride[1], did a stint with the Forest Service, and moved back to my 'homeland' in Montana.

[1] http://imagesdesavions.com/biketrip/

JAG wrote:

Impressive shots though...

Thanks.

I'd forgotten all about this site until "Google Alert" hit on one of my keywords...

Stephen! · May 31, 2009

MikeK wrote:

Cool!

A few years back I was into this type of thing, I used to hook up my Meade ETX-90EC to a Nikon Coolpix 995 with a ScopeTronix 18mm Eyepiece adapter.

I thought about getting an adapter but I couldn't justify the expense.

MikeK wrote:

Here's some of the pictures I took. Moon shots were easy, planets required multiple shots stacked together.

http://www.bourbonstreetphotography.com/gallery/7763849_VSFMq

Cheers,

That's pretty impressive!

Using "Other" kind lenses...

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