Shooting the moon with iPhone 7

[rgrtht]

Firstly, a warm hello, everyone. This is my first post on here; I've been a member for yonks but only just recently got back into astronomy.

I bought myself a Meade LX90 from Bintel about a year ago. I'm looking to get into astrophotography, eventually working my way up to a proper CCD. However I just saw a short video that Apple posted to YouTube (http://https://youtu.be/KyGKGBKECkU) (part of its recent "How to Shoot <blank> on iPhone" series) about photographing the moon.

I quite like the idea of giving it a go, but, as they say in the video, Step 1 is "Set up a telescope and attach your iPhone". Um... right. Anyway, so I googled smartphone adapters for Meade telescopes. Lo and behold, Meade make one (http://http://www.meade.com/smart-phone-adapter.html) themselves, which is about $35-$40 in Australia. I also looked at what Bintel has (http://https://www.bintel.com.au/?s=Smartphone+adapter+&post_type=product) and theirs are a little more expensive, and they don't stock the Meade fella.

Has anyone tried any of these? I'm tempted to go with the Meade one, just because it's made by Meade and so is my scope, but I'm stupid like that :P. Any thoughts or advice would be most welcome.

Thanks!
Ed.

[pluto]

Hello! :D

I personally wouldn't bother with an adapter thing. You can get good full-disk shots just by holding your phone up to the eyepiece. I've taken a few shots with various phones over the years just by holding them up to the eyepiece and they've turned out surprisingly well - especially with my latest GS7.

Of course if you want to get more than full-disk shots you'd need one of those adapters but I'd say if you're getting into it enough for that then you're better off saving that money and putting it towards a DSLR or a planetary/lunar imaging camera.

[sil]

Yep, what Hugh said!

There are tons of camera adapters on ebay too dirt cheap but most people are fine just holding their camera phone to the eyepiece themselves to photograph what's there. The adapters make no difference to brands they all work the same, they have an adjustable to fit around a round thing (the eyepiece) so any eyepiece brand works, they all have different diameters so a simple adjustable band is al the adapter needs, plus an adjustable phone holder, again because all phones are different sizes no brands matter and its purpose is to hold the phones camera over the eyepiece just as you would with your hands anyway.