Meade ETX125 and Nikon D80

[brett]

Hi guys,

Please excuse my ignorance with this topic!!

I have had my ETX in it's box for the past 6 months but decided now would be a good time to start playing again (it's been 2 years!!)... I have plenty of eyepieces and accesories but not much to do with camera adapters etc... I have a Nikon D80 which I have been playing with and would now like to began experimenting with the two together.

Could anyone point me in the right direction for some guides on how to use these two together? Will I get better results attaching the camera to the scope and taking wide-angle shots with the normal lens? I think this is how i'd like to do it?

Thanks heaps,

Brett

[brett]

bump! :D

[luka]

Hi,

I am not an expert on this but at least I can give you some hints with the camera. I have D80 as well and have taken a few photos with it. It is not the best camera for long exposures due to the amp noise but it will do several minutes ok.

1. You can attach the camera to the scope and do some widefield shots (depending on the lenses you have). I assume that EDX125 can track the sky so after finding a way to attach the camera all you have to do is experiment with exposures. This should be relatively easy.

2. You can attach the camera directly to the scope instead of an eyepiece and use the scope as a big lense for the camera. You would need a T-adapter which should be available in various astronomy shops. With its f/15 focal ratio and 1900mm focal length, ETX-125 is probably best used on moon/planets but I am not an expert on this. Also you may have issues in getting it to focus...


With D80, set it in manual mode and set ISO 1600 to start with. For method 1, try a low f-number first as this will give you more light.
Once you get the feeling, you can try lower ISO and different f-numbers. With your lense f-number should be few stops higher than the minimum as this will give you the best imaging quality. Try taking photos with different f-numbers and compare the quality in the corners to determine the lowest number with the best image quality.

Unfortunately you can get only up to 30s exposures (shakefree) with D80 unless you get a cable adapter or an infrared adapter. The latter are very cheap on ebay and work great. Set camera to manual, exposure time to B, set camera to use infrared and press the button to open shutter, press the button again to close it after the time you want. Longer exposures are a must for better photos.

Of course set the camera to highest quality - raw works the best. Beware that most of the Nikon cameras do some post-processing with raw files even when you tell them not to :shrug: unless you do some nastry tricks so this raw is not a real raw :mad2:. Still better than jpeg.

Once you get started, disable the noise reduction for high ISO and take dark and flat frames as well. You can also stack the photos to improve signal to noise - for example using Deep Sky Stacker. There should be lots of guides for this on the net.

Hope this helps,
Luka

P.S. Don't forget to post your photos

[brett]

thanks a stack for your reply luka :) it will help me out greatly :)

does anyone know how i can attach the camera to the scope? can you buy a strap or do you need to make something up yourself?

thanks

:D

[luka]

Again, not being an expert on the subject, googling for "piggy back camera etx125" resulted in few places selling the mounting ring.
Or you can build it yourself (http://www.larrydsmith.com/astro/piggyback.html).

[luka]

Also this (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=311672)thread may be of interest regarding ETX125 and astrophotography.