Moon - my first attempt

[callingrohit]

hello all,

I took my first plunge into astrophotography using the telescope. Took a few shots of the full moon on sunday using canon 400d on the 8" dob - afocal technique.

Nothing flashy as compared to some images of the moon I have seen in this section, just wanted to share mine and get a opinion. This was a nice experience because uptill now I used to always photograph the moon, using my 300mm lens. I may buy the t-ring and t-adaptor in the coming months but the afocal technique is okay for moon but won't work for other stuff, untill I get a EQ mount. Also, it was too windy today and I could see a lot of turbulence and wavyness in the atmosphere while viewing the moon.

Do let me know your comments and how to further improve on such photos. Afocal technique was easy with the 25mm Plossl EP but got tougher with the 9mm Plossl EP.

Will be taking some more shots once I get my barlow and hopefully get a steady weather.

Thank you.

[iceman]

Hey Vivek, they're great for a first attempt.

You will find it quite difficult with a high magnification eyepiece, especially with the large lens attached to a DSLR. You'll get lots of vignetting, and with cheaper plossls, the images won't be sharp near the edge of the field.

Full moon shots with a lower-power eyepiece are much easier, as you've found. The second shot is a great one.

You can get better at afocal stuff.. for example, sitting the camera on a tripod instead of hand-holding, or getting an afocal adapter bracket which will hold the camera onto the eyepiece.

Ultimately though, you will be limited with what you can do with a DSLR and a dob. I wouldn't bother with T-Ring and adapter yet - you'll most likely find that the DSLR won't come to focus at prime focus, due to not enough in-travel. You'd need to get a very low profile focuser, or move the mirror up the tube. It's discussed here in this article: Modifying a newtonian for DSLR Photography (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?id=63,441,0,0,1,0).

So you might just want to keep playing with afocal until you get an EQ mount - then you can worry about those things.

You can try a webcam like a ToUcam with your dob - it will give you better high-magnification images of parts of the moon, but it's a lot of work and is a whole new ballgame.

Good luck and keep trying!

[Dennis]

Nice photos Vivek. The 2nd one looks very good indeed.

Cheers

Dennis

[joshman]

Good form! keep it up, you'll catch the bug soon enough! (if you haven't already!)

[callingrohit]

Thank you all for your inspiring comments.

Mike, I did try the initially with the DSLR handheld but my hand was shaking a lot so then I got my tripod and it took me a while to get the hang of adjusting the tripod according to the EP but finally got there and took a lot of shots.

I might buy the afocal adaptor, any particular place you would recommend to buy from ?

Thanks

[ving]

a bit of CA around the second one, but thats not a user issue :)
not bad for a first try, just a bit soft :)

[Alchemy]

good first try, particularly as the full moon was low on the horizon, the higher up she is generally the better the seeing..... and therefore the image

cheers AL

[callingrohit]

Thank you for your comments.

Alchemy - yeah I realised it later that as higher the moon is lesser is the turbulence.

Ving - What do you mean by CA ?

[iceman]

CA is Chromatic Abberation - or purple fringing as it's sometimes called.

Cheap lenses and/or eyepieces don't bring all the colour channels to focus at the same point, and bright objects can have a bluey/purpley ring around them.

[callingrohit]

hey mike,How do you differentiate between cheap and good quality EPs ? Is it the usual price wise or dependent upon the manufacturing company ?ThanksVivek

[PCH]

Hi Vivek,

any chance you could tell us what settings you chose for the 400D ?

Great first try as well :thumbsup:
Cheers,

[callingrohit]

Thank you for your encouraging comments Paul. I took a lot of moon shots approximately 87-90 to make sure atleast a few come out fine. Another reason was I was doing it for the first time using my 8" dob scope with 25mm Plossl EP & the canon 400d via the afocal technique. Also since I didn't have the eyepiece projection adaptor I had to keep my hand over the camera lens and the eyepiece so that external lights don't interfere...well lets just say I wasn't really thinking...i could have used a black cloth I had....anyways....

As for the settings they were all done in the manual mode,

1st image - Focal length = 46mm
ISO = 400
Shutter Speed = 1/160 sec
Lens Aperture = F/11

2nd image - Focal length = 22mm
ISO = 800
Shutter Speed = 1/320 sec
Lens Aperture = F/11

I'm soon going to order the adjusting eyepiece projection adaptor with the T-ring for my 400d to avoid the pain of adjusting the height and orientation of the camera tripod as the field of view of the scope changes.This setup also didn't have my 2x barlow which I recieved today, so over the weekend, I may get some more shots with the barlow and the EP projection adaptor to see how I go. Unfortunately I've already spent a lot of money in getting accessory after accessory and so won't be getting into Prime Focus photography atleast for another year bcoz then for good results an EQ5/6 (dual axis drives) is very necessary....

so as of now I'll be trying to improvise on getting snaps via the afocal technique and hopefully I'll get a crystal clear image of SATURN...an inspiring dream....:thumbsup:

thanks