Compact fun

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Had a play doing some afocal photography on Monday night using a Sony RX100M3 set up to a 6mm eyepiece and 2 x Barlow in an 8 inch Newt. The seeing was pretty bad and cloud was reducing the transparency, so this was by no means serious stuff, just something a bit different. These were shot using the camera's Full HD video at 50fps. Saturn was a 4 min grab and Jupiter a 1 1/2min grab. Had the seeing and transparency been better, the result may not have been too bad.

[Dave882 (David)]

That’s brilliant!!! I mean, obviously it isn’t going to rival a normal Astro cam setup - but for an experiment what a great result!

[Outcast (Carlton)]

Originally Posted by Mickoid

Had a play doing some afocal photography on Monday night using a Sony RX100M3 set up to a 6mm eyepiece and 2 x Barlow in an 8 inch Newt. The seeing was pretty bad and cloud was reducing the transparency, so this was by no means serious stuff, just something a bit different. These were shot using the camera's Full HD video at 50fps. Saturn was a 4 min grab and Jupiter a 1 1/2min grab. Had the seeing and transparency been better, the result may not have been too bad.

Curious as to how you've setup your RX100 for afocal imaging? Do you have an adaptor? Commercial or DIY?

I have same camera, great little prosumer compact which I'd love to use for afocal work for dead simple imaging... I've explored a few options for attachment but, nothing has really worked satisfactorily

Cherrs

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Dave882

That’s brilliant!!! I mean, obviously it isn’t going to rival a normal Astro cam setup - but for an experiment what a great result!

Dave, glad you liked them. It wasn't exactly an experiment, I had used the afocal technique before, I chose it this night because conditions didn't look good enough to be dragging out the rig and chucking on the Astro cam and associated Laptop. What surprised me was that if conditions had been better, the little Sony would have produced a reasonable image.

Originally Posted by Outcast

Curious as to how you've setup your RX100 for afocal imaging? Do you have an adaptor? Commercial or DIY?

I have same camera, great little prosumer compact which I'd love to use for afocal work for dead simple imaging... I've explored a few options for attachment but, nothing has really worked satisfactorily

Cherrs

Carlton, it is a commercially available adapter almost identical to the one shown here. Several companies stamp their names on these, mine is an Orion brand.

[Outcast (Carlton)]

Originally Posted by Mickoid

Carlton, it is a commercially available adapter almost identical to the one shown here. Several companies stamp their names on these, mine is an Orion brand.

Thanks Michael, did you use the sony at maximum optical zoom?

Cheers

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Yes, not that it amounts to much with the SonyRX100M3!

[Averton (P and C)]

Those images came out very well. Nice, simple set up.