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Old 19-08-2010, 11:09 AM
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Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)
Let there be night...

Omaroo is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Hobart, TAS
Posts: 7,639
Darrin - just some basic info. A Bahtinov mask is brilliant if you're working on deep-sky objects when you can use it to focus on an adjacent medium-bright star - a single "point source" of light. Bahtinov masks do not work at all when trained on a disc - i.e. a planet such as Venus, Jupiter or even worse-still, the Moon.

Even if you do focus on a medium brightness star and then slew to the Moon to take photos, the focal points are way different anyway. The moon does not focus at the same point a star does.

DSLR's are great on the Moon - but not necessarily for other planetary bodies. Seeing is a problem as Brendan points out, and while video cameras such as the DBK can give you an easier time of it all (stacking hundreds of frames automagically), they will never give you the all-round resolution a good DSLR will when seeing conditions are good.

I've even used my FS-102 with a 2x barlow followed by a 5x PowerMate giving an effective focal length of 8,200mm and a focal ratio of around f/78 (!!!) to take full-frame photos of Copernicus with great success. To counter what I mentioned before, I've also used the same combination to get this - in a single shot with the Nikon D40. Seeing was utterly wonderful that night... a rarity, but not impossible to encounter.
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