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Old 28-03-2020, 01:27 PM
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mental4astro (Alexander)
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Smartphone single shot of Luna

I was culling pics from my phone when I came across this one from September last year. I took a few shots but then forgot I had taken them...

I was used an Intes-Alter 715 Deluxe Maksutov and a 25mm plossl for this afocal single shot. I had my Samsung A5 phone in an adapter - only way to carefully align the camera. I haven't done any processing of the shot at all. It's straight as the camera took it.

I'm pretty happy with this shot for being a single frame

Alex.
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Old 28-03-2020, 01:29 PM
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Astronut07 (Ben)
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Alex

Fantastic pic!!


Cheers
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Old 28-03-2020, 01:43 PM
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DavidU (Dave)
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Nice one Lex
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Old 28-03-2020, 04:09 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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Alex
Superb detail along the terminator
Who needs a planetary astro Camera
Definitely a keeper
Well done !
Martin
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  #5  
Old 28-03-2020, 07:37 PM
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Ant0nio (Tony)
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Nice work Alex , it's amazing what can be done with a smartphone, 25mm Plossl & a decent telescope. That's how it all started for me.
Cheers,
Tony
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Old 31-03-2020, 02:20 PM
raymo
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Don't forget that Alex was using a super dooper planetary scope. That's what
produced the image, not the phone.
raymo
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Old 31-03-2020, 03:35 PM
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mental4astro (Alexander)
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Thanks for the kind words everyone

Quote:
Originally Posted by raymo View Post
Don't forget that Alex was using a super dooper planetary scope. That's what
produced the image, not the phone.
raymo


Yes, but there is another aspect to this!

By using the phone adapter (like the one in the pic below), I focused the scope according to what the CAMERA saw, not focused to my eyes. I have noticed a difference in the focus clarity between what works for my eyes vs the smartphone. Only by using an adapter can you spend the time to focus as needed. So yes, the quality of the scope is one part. Being able to focus to the phone is the other.
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Old 31-03-2020, 05:40 PM
Saturnine (Jeff)
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Moving over to the imaging dark side now Alex ! Actually you have captured a good image of Mare Smythii and Mare Marginis due to a favourable eastern libration.
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Old 01-04-2020, 08:44 PM
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Hey Alex,

That's an awesome pic!

Cheers,
Cheryl.
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  #10  
Old 01-04-2020, 09:19 PM
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mental4astro (Alexander)
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Thanks Cheryl!

And to IIS!

Great to see you here too

Alex.
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  #11  
Old 01-04-2020, 09:50 PM
assbutt94
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It's always surprising how good of a photo you can get of the moon with a smartphone through a telescope.
That adaptor looks a lot easier than handheld
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  #12  
Old 15-04-2020, 03:19 PM
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Greetings Alex!
Brilliant shot, nearly as good as one of your beaut sketches!
I have recently bought a mount for my iPhone, and I have NightCap installed (which gives surprisingly great star shots when used on a tripod mount).

What is the best way to use this? Just attach it to any eyepiece? I did mount it on a 40mm Super View Camera Projection with pleasing results, but really I don't have a clue what I'm doing.
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Old 16-04-2020, 02:32 PM
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mental4astro (Alexander)
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Thanks Rick

All I can offer is to go through how I use my phone.

Below is the sort of adapter I use. One thing I like about it is gives me some flexibility with the spacing between the eye lens of the eyepiece and the camera as different eyepieces have different spacing requirements.

Click image for larger version

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I also focus the scope to the phone, not my eye. This makes a huge difference.

I normally use a 25mm plossl as my lowest magnification. A 40mm has a very long amount of eye relief, which may result in difficulties with getting a good image.

You can take single frames, or you can take a video and then process the video in exactly the same way as any other astrophotography processing, using the very same free software. You can use this method not just for lunar photography, but planetary and there are some people who are also using the phones for deep sky objects. For lunar and planetary, you don't need a tracking mount as the exposures are short & software aligns the frames. For deep sky photos, tracking is more important as the exposure times are longer.

Below are a couple of pics I took of the last lunar occultation of Saturn. I used the same phone adapter as it is the only way to hold the phone in the same sweet spot of the the eyepiece and get the same image quality consistently. All single shot frames. I used a 9mm TMB eyepiece for the first three shots, and a 5mm TMB eyepiece for the last. One thing you will notice though is the Moon is either exposed to get Saturn right, or Saturn is very under exposed to get the Moon right. This is because of the huge dynamic range difference - the innate difference in brilliance between the two objects. This is unavoidable, and difficult for most cameras to deal with.

Alex.
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  #14  
Old 25-04-2020, 07:19 AM
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Another great example of what's possible with a basic setup. Rivals some images taken with dedicated astro cameras. Nice scope too, it looks like a real gem.
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