standard digital camera

[Chippy3476 (Danial)]

Hi all.
I was wondering if it is possible to use a standard digital camera to take some pics of space. I tried with Venus but it just shows up a light blob. I have no idea what I was doing though, I just held the lense against the eyepiece and shot away. I have seen some nice pictures taken with camera phones and thought I would ask the question.
Thanls all
Dan

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

If your point and shoot camera has a manual setting, try a few different shutter speed settings. Normally without adjustment of some sort they will overexpose planets.

[Chippy3476 (Danial)]

So a faster shutter speed is better? I can adjust my iso settings too.

[astronobob (Bob)]

Hi Daniel, I suggest trying on Jupiter as it has more surface features than Venus, venus is covered with ice clouds making the planet very bright & featureless, Jupiter has two nice darkish equatorial bands that are a lot easier to distinguish if your exposure settings are good ?
Better still, try on the moon if you havent already, changing exposure settings to have a pale moon with darker shadows etc showing,rather than a bright moon !
Are you able to post your Venus image ?

[Chippy3476 (Danial)]

I have deleted all the photos already mate. It was nothing more than a light circle blob. Will try on the moon when it comes back out. Thanks

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

If you have a movie mode on your camera, you would be best off taking a short movie, then converting it into an avi then stack the image using Registax.
A lot of us got our start in astro imaging this way, just butting the lense up to the eyepiece.

Here's some of my early work using the same method with a clunky old brick of a video camera. It just takes a lot of patience and practice.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...1&l=2b14e49a75