[baltica]

Hello astrophotography folks,
With Octane's recent posting of a fantastic shot of M42, I thought I might join in with my attempt taken on 12/Mar/06.
My wife and I recently purchased an Intes Micro M703 (7" Maksutov Cassegrain) optical tube. It now sits atop a Meade LXD75 mount. The telescope has a focal length of 1750mm and my eyepiece (yes, singular) is 12mm in focal length. It is of unknown type.
Last night the clouds parted long enough for me to snap off a few experimental shots. I managed to capture the Jewel Box, Rigel Kentaurus, and M42 before the clouds moved in again and spoiled my fun.
The attached photo of M42 was taken using my Canon S60 (happy snaps camera with some manual functions). I had taken the advice of my workmate and used my camera's tripod to position it in front of the eyepiece (rather than just holding it there as I had tried on an earlier attempt). I set the camera's exposure time to 10 seconds, and aperture to F5.6. I wasn't sure where to set the manual focus, so I set it to infinite. I also left the zoom as wide (ie. low power) as possible.
Looking through my eyepiece, I can see the shades of grey of the nebula. Amazingly (for me), using my camera with an exposure time of only 10 seconds, I am able to "see" some colour in the nebula. Also the shades of grey which fill the eyepiece don't appear to have been captured by the camera. It mustn't be sensitive enough to differentiate the shades of grey present.
So, that's it for my first "serious" (ie. tripod mounted camera) attempt to capture a piece of the night sky on digital film. What fun!
Thanks again to Octane for sharing his glorious shot of the nebula. Now I can finally figure out which part of the nebula I am viewing. Thanks!
Matt.