first go

[astrocookie (Molly)]

hi everyone,

this is my first attempt at astrophotography!

for most of you that have been taking photos for a long time, the moon is probably old news, but I was pretty happy with my photo

[W1ngnut (Sam)]

Hi Molly,

Nice attempt at the moon. I'm still a beginner myself and am loving taking photos of the moon!

What equipment did you use?

Regards
Sam

[renormalised (Carl)]

Nice first attempt, Molly. Try to reduce the size of your piccies so people don't have to scroll all over their screens to see it.

You will have to work on getting proper focus...the piccie is very soft in its focus.

When you post a pic, to make it easier for others to see what you've been doing, post the specs for your pic....like the ISO speed of your camera at the time of the shot, how long the exposure/exposures was/were, the focal length of your scope you took the pics with etc. Like you see others post.

You have quite a bit of chromatic aberration there in the pic...you have an achromatic lens refractor, don't you??.

[astrocookie (Molly)]

hi sam and carl also,

I used my little 4" scope and just an every day digital camera.
I'm just playing around with astrophotography, its great fun but I'm not planning on buying more equipment just yet.

to answer your question carl, yes I do have an achromatic lens refractor, how do I prevent all the chromatic aberration?

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Well done Molly!!!
I reckon it's a damn fine first image.
Honestly, we should have a thread dedicated to "first images".
It would make those just starting feel so much better about what they have achieved. LOL
My very first image of a barely recognisable smear.

[astrocookie (Molly)]

hahahaha, thanks jjjnettie!

that photo is from a group of about 15, its the only on that was decent! I was out side for about half an hour, then the clouds came and spoiled the fun! I honestly didn't mind though, because by then my fingers where frozen to the camera!!!

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by astrocookie

hi sam and carl also,

I used my little 4" scope and just an every day digital camera.
I'm just playing around with astrophotography, its great fun but I'm not planning on buying more equipment just yet.

to answer your question carl, yes I do have an achromatic lens refractor, how do I prevent all the chromatic aberration?

There are filters you can buy which will greatly reduce the amount of CA in your scope. One of the best ones is the Baader Semi-Apo filter. They're designed to get rid of that blue ring you can see in your piccies and also when you're looking through your scope. You can also get what they call "fringe killer" filters, but the semi-apo filter is a better filter.

What sort of digital point and shoot are you using??. You can get attachments for your scope and camera to attach camera to the scope whilst you're taking piccies.