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Old 23-01-2005, 01:23 PM
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silvinator
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Canberra, ACT, Australia
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Rodstar, I own a sony cybershot DSC-S75 point and shoot digital camera. For now, I'm limited to afocal shots, hand held, as I don't have a way of attaching the camera to the scope as yet. As a start, I had to buy a lens adapter for my camera which I bought off ebay (the actual sony brand lend adapter cost three times the price I paid for on ebay, go figure!), before I could even think about attaching the camera to anything!

For my camera type, and for most digital cameras similar to mine, there are a few options for telescope attachment.

Firstly, I can use a camera adapter that attaches to the focuser with an eyepiece in place, which I then attach the camera to with the lens adapter and neccesary step ring (which is what I don't have at the moment as I'm unsure of the thread sizes!) which fits between the lens adapter and the camera adapter. This is called eyepiece projection photography. Looking at the specs of the kodak camera, you would probably need the same sort of setup.

The other method still requires a lens adapter though so you can't escape that purchase if the lens of the camera comes right out. With my camera, I could connect the lens adapter to the right sized step ring and then attach it to a Digi-T ring, a ring that attaches directly to an eyepiece with a removeable eyeguard that is made by scopetronix. This is a more expensive solution though, as the small tiny Digi-T ring itself costs more than my meade basic camera adapter!

The most easiset and inexpensive method of attachment is with a univsersal digital camera adapter of some sort. Ving, another forum member was clever enough and made his own. However you can also buy these adapters for a relatively low cost.

So those are just some of the things I wanted to point out when thinking about what digital camera to buy - how easy would it be to attach to the scope? You may find you need to buy many extra parts for what seems like a simple connection. I've found it has been a lot easier trying to find a way to attach my old SLR's to the scope than my digital camera. All I needed was the T-ring adapter that came with my scope for my old fujica and for the olympus, an extra olympus t-ring was all I needed. This is probably why DSLR's are popular too (I can't comment as I don't own one).

One other thing to note about my digital camera is that I do get vignetting if the camera is not held straight and as close to the eyepiece as possible, easily solved with a more stable connection I believe. Also, my camera has a lot of digital noise, even for shorter exposures, though I think digital cameras these days are getting better at handling that but it's still a problem. I've read that the 300D has excellent noise reduction, better than the nikon D70, another popular astrophotography DSLR but there are ways around the noise problems with software, subtracting dark frames etc.

PS: sorry for the long post folks, just trying to give rodstar as much info before he takes the plunge
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