Best attempts so far

[stopusinmyid (Tammy)]

Hi all,

Seen as how people are putting up their first attempts at Astrophotography, I thought I'd share my shots as well. This is my second go at the moon and are the best so far. These are taken with my Kodak 8megapixel digital camera last night. My many attempts at Saturn have been no good, blurry. Can't seem to keep camera steady enough. Am looking into buying the Celestron Neximage Imager. Peoples opinions much appreciated.

[irwjager (Ivo)]

Originally Posted by stopusinmyid

Hi all,

Seen as how people are putting up their first attempts at Astrophotography, I thought I'd share my shots as well. This is my second go at the moon and are the best so far. These are taken with my Kodak 8megapixel digital camera last night. My many attempts at Saturn have been no good, blurry. Can't seem to keep camera steady enough. Am looking into buying the Celestron Neximage Imager. Peoples opinions much appreciated.

Hi Tammy,

Thanks for sharing! Always nice to see new enthusiasts coming aboard.
If you can afford it, my advice would be to go for an entry level DSLR, such as a Canon 1100D. They're great for astro work (DSO and planetary) AND daytime use; very versatile.
Their features come in handy in all sorts of ways (the Liveview is a great focusing aid) and with the later models you can even shoot good videos, much like a webcam, so that you can record the planets.
Especially the Canons will keep you happy for a long time to come. But if you get sick of the hobby (you wont! ) you still have a very capable DSLR for daytime use. Heaps of people around here use them and have been using them for years.

If you're thinking of sticking with planetary and lunar images for the moment, you'll want to have a look at The GIMP for modifying (improving) your images after you have taken them. It's a free software package that is very similar to Photoshop. You can get it at http://www.gimp.org

Looking forward to more of your images and wishing you heaps of fun!

[Poita (Peter)]

I always love shots of the moon. were these taken through the Astromaster 130EQ? How did you attach the camera?

[renormalised (Carl)]

Hi Tammy.....nice shots

A NexImage camera would be a good buy for taking shots of the planets and the Moon. But if you do decide to snap other targets, such as nebulae, galaxies etc, Ivo's suggestion of the Canon camera is also a good one.

[stopusinmyid (Tammy)]

Originally Posted by Poita

I always love shots of the moon. were these taken through the Astromaster 130EQ? How did you attach the camera?

I didn't have it attached to the telescope, I just held camera up to the EP and yes they were taken through my Astromaster. Have decided to get the Neximage imager as hubby reckons we should use the money it would cost to invest in the Canon to upgrade our telescope. So I shall have a play around with Neximage until we do, then go from there. I would like to have a go at getting shots of Nebulas eventually. He has a SLR but it isn't digital, was thinking of having a play around with that and getting pictures put onto disc so i can still use the required software to layer them or would i just be wasting my time? Any suggestions on what program to use also.

[midnight (Darrin)]

If you go down the track of getting the Neximage, just remember to play around with the gain and exposure. It took me a week to work out why my Saturn image was completely white. The gain was too high!!!

Nice images too and good luck!!

Darrin...

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by stopusinmyid

I didn't have it attached to the telescope, I just held camera up to the EP and yes they were taken through my Astromaster. Have decided to get the Neximage imager as hubby reckons we should use the money it would cost to invest in the Canon to upgrade our telescope. So I shall have a play around with Neximage until we do, then go from there. I would like to have a go at getting shots of Nebulas eventually. He has a SLR but it isn't digital, was thinking of having a play around with that and getting pictures put onto disc so i can still use the required software to layer them or would i just be wasting my time? Any suggestions on what program to use also.

The NexImage is a Moon and planet camera. It's not really good for anything else. Although I have seen some people try it on DSO's....bright ones mainly. Things like M42, bright globs and such. But it's still better if you get a DSLR or a dedicated CCD camera for those pics.

The best stacking software for the Moon and planets is Registax. For DSO's it's DeepSkyStacker (DSS). Both these programs are free.

[niko]

Great shots Tammy - well done

I used to use a non digital SLR - I still think it did a better job of star trails than the digital versions.

The biggest problem I had using through the telescope was achieving focus. The ground glass screen at the back is just too small to really know if you've achieved good focus and of course you have to wait to get the photos back to be sure.

It just proved a bit too frustrating for deep space stuff - might be okay for the moon

cheers

niko

[Poita (Peter)]

Tammy, I have an old Canon 10D DSLR or a Toucam you could borrow for a while if you want to see how they go.

-Peter

[irwjager (Ivo)]

Originally Posted by niko

The biggest problem I had using through the telescope was achieving focus. The ground glass screen at the back is just too small to really know if you've achieved good focus and of course you have to wait to get the photos back to be sure.

It just proved a bit too frustrating for deep space stuff - might be okay for

Hi Niko,

You can get pretty good results if your camera allows you to digitally zoom into a subsection. The idea is you do this on a star and completely max the digital zoom. I've been able to achieve good focus this way on even consumer digital compact cameras (afocally).

Cheers,

[stopusinmyid (Tammy)]

Just want to say thanks everyone for your ideas/advice and compliments and a big to Poita for the offer to borrow his cameras. I ended up buying the NexImage last night. Also I have decided to hassle hubby to borrow his sisters Digital SLR to have a play with. Would love to have a go at the Nebulaes, all them colours Also any suggestions as to what EP to use for looking at Nebulaes and is my telescope good enough for them?

[renormalised (Carl)]

The 130EQ is more than adequate to look at any object, let alone a nebula. Most nebulae are large, extended objects, so your best ep's for this are the low powered ones......20mm and larger. The larger, the better. A 30-32mm ep would be ideal. If you have a stock standard 26mm ep, that will be fine also. Some are so large, that even a pair of binoculars is preferable to a scope