Expert Astrophotography Tips & Discussions | Share Your Photos!

[russ_watters]

I wouldn't consider it to be.

 

[Stanwyck66]

...is a little atmospheric refraction (red edge/blue edge) so I assume that you took the pics when it was low in the sky?

What kind of camera and scope/eyepiece did you use?

On the Moon, you can align in Registrax using a crater with good contrast most of the time.

First, it could have been higher in the sky your right, unfortunately I didn't have time to stay up as late as I needed for it to be higher. I'm using a 6" reflector and a digital camera..and I tried using a prominent crater for stacking moon images and it seemed to work much better, thanks!

FYI, the first pic was my first ever astrophoto with a Quickcam and a crappy 60mm (2.4") refractor. The second pic was taken with a 104mm (4.1") Mak-Cas and the Quickcam.

Notice the dates on the pics...that's the big problem, when you light the fire you need more...

Second, Russ, would something like a Quickcam and an OIII filter be sufficient for taking pictures of nebulae? I have relatively dark skies and can head out of town if needed.


Annndd finally here is my best attempt at Mars, I was surprised to get detail along the poles.

 

[russ_watters]

It would be dificult with a stock quickcam because they don't do long exposure photography. There are people who have modified them (by cutting and soldering the leads on the CCD chip!), but that's difficult. Plus, dobs don't do tracking, so long exposure imaging really isn't an option.

 

[MotoH]

I can't seem to get a very large mars. It is just a small pin head in the telescope. I am using a 4.5 inch reflector with a 6mm 12.5mm and a 32mm eyepieces. Mars is still supposed to be pretty close to Earth during March is it not? I am not expecting a big Mars, but the ice caps would be nice to see! Maybe my eyes just need to adjust to taking in fainter details.

 

[russ_watters]

You should see the ice caps but Mars is pretty small. A 2x Barlow may help.

 

[MotoH]

I don't want to piggy back on this thread, but it really isn't worthy of a thread itself.

I have my latitude set for my latitude (48deg.), the Declination set at 90 degrees, and the R.A is at 17(hours?). This should make it so when I point my telescope exactly north, Polaris will be in my telescope, correct? If it is perfectly lined up, will I then leave my telescope in this position, and only rotate the R.A. to get to all of the stars and planets?

Also my motor drive should turn the R.A. 1 hour for every hour it is running right? What about planet tracking? It will be faster than one hour?

 

[russ_watters]

You'll find with alt and Dec set the RA doesn't matter - just swing the counterweight below the scope for convenience. And yes - the point of the motor drive is tracking at the speed the Earth rotates. Planets don't move enough faster or slower to matter in one night...the moon and comets do though.

 

[MotoH]

I just wanted to show my first telescope off. . .!

 

[chemisttree]

The time stamp shows year 2216. It's amazing that telescopes haven't changed much in all that time!

 

[MotoH]

Something must have been blocking the antenna:

 

[MotoH]

I took this one last night:

 

[Anna13]

WoW.
Your photo is brilliant,MotoH. I love it.

 

[Chronos]

Thanks a lot, guys, I just purchased new scope, ccd, and accessories. Only spent twice as much as planned [and still short a few extras]. I won't be ordering out for pizza in the foreseeable future. I will, however, be able to take beautiful close up shots of neighbors' pizza ... putting up sign next to scope - 1 slice per observer.

 

[mikeph]

Im going to go back and read this entire thread, but just thought I'll ask this now rather than later...

I am trying to do astrophotography with a DSLR. I just bought a D5000 + kit lens. I'm not expecting to take photos of galaxies or anything, hopefully just capture some detail on the moon and maybe some planets. Is this achievable with a standard 50mm f/1.8 lens? I'm thinking of buying one. I understand that if you want more a detail you can spend a lot on a telezoom lens but then you have to do some sort of tracking as well?

Going to try and get Mars which should be in the sky tomorrow I think, hopefully a series of 30 second images put together will give some brightness.


PS that moon picture above is awesome.


edit- considering getting the ridiculously cheap Nikon 70-300mm lens and try to get some 30 second exposures to put together. It seems that a lot of the "real" amateur stuff (telescope, tracking software, mounts) comes in at above a PhD student's budget so hopefully I can learn some things this way and then move up slowly.

 

[russ_watters]

The moon is a lot smaller than it looks to your eyes: you need a pretty long telephoto lens to take good pictures of it with a dslr. You don't need tracking or long exposure: it is very bright.

Mars is also very bright: you don't need long exposure for it either.

 

[mikeph]

Thanks Russ. Is 200mm long enough? I really only have a choice between a 55-200mm and a 70-300mm in my price range. The former would be much more useful in other areas, and it has VR.

Plus the camera has 1.6 crop factor.

 

[chemisttree]

Thanks a lot, guys, I just purchased new scope, ccd, and accessories. Only spent twice as much as planned [and still short a few extras]. I won't be ordering out for pizza in the foreseeable future. I will, however, be able to take beautiful close up shots of neighbors' pizza ... putting up sign next to scope - 1 slice per observer.

Was that the 10" SN on the LXD75 mount?

 

[russ_watters]

Thanks Russ. Is 200mm long enough? I really only have a choice between a 55-200mm and a 70-300mm in my price range. The former would be much more useful in other areas, and it has VR.

Plus the camera has 1.6 crop factor.

I'm not really sure how it works with DSLRs, but the math on that works out to 6x zoom. That's marginal, but should be OK for a start.

 

[baywax]

Thanks for inspiring me and my youngest boy, guys. First we need to master the telescope and get some clear skies. Then we need to figure out the camera end of it! We have an observatory in the middle of town... lots of light pollution. But Russ has shown how that can be overcome. There's another out at the university with less lights around. This is great, thanks again!

 

[russ_watters]

You're welcome!

The camera part is dangerous - once you rip the lens off a webcam and slap it onto the back of your telescope, there is no going back!

 

[Chronos]

Still mastering the scope, it is obdurate. Added 2 wraps of foam to mount dew cap. Looks good so far. Will need to add thumbscrew.

 

[baywax]

You're welcome!

The camera part is dangerous - once you rip the lens off a webcam and slap it onto the back of your telescope, there is no going back!

We're headed to the interior this summer with an old crappy 40 mm telescope but, the sky is so clear and extremely dark where we're going that you can see all 14 of the 7 sisters and one entire arm of our galaxy like it was attached to your shoulder. Webcams, web, cells, shoot 'em up games be damned! We've got a date with some very nice horses!

 

[Stanwyck66]

I just moved to the DC area and took my scope out for the first time..this is the best Jupiter I've taken so far. I darkened it a little to see more detail and color.

 

[Mikeral]

Hello astrophotographers
I am new to the whole domain and just posted my first shots on youtube, i shot a couple short passes of stars with a webcam (logitech C200) and my telescope (http://www.tasco.com/single.cfm?s=Telescopes&family=Luminova&product=40114675" ). Anyway, if anyone has any tips for me, would be nice to hear some, mind you i don't have a big budget for equipment, university tuition ftw. I'm mostly looking for tips on noise reduction and better image quality. i have a mac, for any software related issues, which tends to be very picky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6a9kruqFtBI&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6a9kruqFtBI&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

 

[Chronos]

yes, lxd75-sn10. optical tube is a bit heavy for mount, but, am juicing it up. i am a mechanical engineer so [perhaps mistakenly] assume i can manage the task. my observing area is fenced and surrounded by trees. i can only view about half the sky, but, wind is rarely an issue. i put diy wilcox rings on tube for convenience. handles are still hillbilly, but, working on that.

 

[mikeph]

Hi all again.

Was just wondering what this object is in the night sky.

I took a photo with it on a wide angle lens, it caught my eye as something much brighter than any star, and it did not twinkle so I believe it might have been a planet!
When I zoomed in I thought "no star can be this circular" - the angular size is too big, right?

Also I think it might be interesting to note the "sunstars" that I got out of the camera from the road lights are not also present on this object- why? It was taken at wide angle of 15mm (35mm equivalent), with a 6 second exposure on f/22.

The location was the Canary Isles, 24th June, and the direction of the object is pretty much dead west.

[PLAIN]http://a.imageshack.us/img340/9312/dsc0246kr.jpg

400x zoom

[PLAIN]http://a.imageshack.us/img13/3319/dsc0246copy.jpg Please tell me it's Mars!

 

[russ_watters]

Hi all again.

Was just wondering what this object is in the night sky.

Please tell me it's Mars!

Sorry: Venus.

Also sorry, but that pic doesn't show the disk, it is just blown-out and/or out of focus. At that resolution, the disk would probably be just a little less than a pixel across...it would also be a fat crescent shape. Venus has phases!

Also I think it might be interesting to note the "sunstars" that I got out of the camera from the road lights are not also present on this object- why?

I'm not sure what you mean - could you rephrase?

 

[chemisttree]

I think he means diffraction spikes. Likely from an effects filter on his camera or its coming from the iris. He is stopped down to f22! Some of that is his wide angle lens which I believe acts like a focal reducer. He probably doesn't have a round iris at that f stop. I'm thinking it is a hexagonal shape.

You won't see those spikes on any but the brightest objects. If you had a tracking mount and cropped it to exclude the foreground and focused venus to a tiny point (half moon shaped thing) and increased your shutter speed to 1 minute, you would likely see it.

 

[russ_watters]

That makes sense - I agre with all of that. I also didn't notice before, but now that I'm looking for it, Venus is noticeably hexagonal in that picture...except that no camera would need 1 minute of exposure. I have imaged Saturn at f50 and use about a .1 sec exposure. That's a little too much magnification, so most of my planetary imaging is done at f25, with ~1/30th second exposures.

 

[chemisttree]

Yes, shorter speeds are needed for range and detail but if it is the spikes you want instead, longer times would exaggerate that. He is already using a 6 second exposure and the spikes are only faintly there.

BTW, I'm going to take back my "focus Venus to a tiny point" recommendation. At that f number what he has is likely the best focus he can achieve. Any bluriness is most likely due to seeing.

That is a very nice picture, MikeyW! Just like a postcard.

 

[mikeph]

Thanks! I waited for a good hour for the right lighting. It's just a shame I didn't have my longer lens, I might have been able to get some resolution with a 200mm lens- although I don't know how I would have kept the camera still.

I took a similar photo handheld at about f/5.6, 1/30 second exposure and it was just a big blurry line, so I imagine at a large zoom I will need even more light.You're right about the diaphragm blades, there are 6 which are slightly curved so at f/22 it is probably 80% hexagon, 20% sphere.

 

[FawkesCa]

ten points if you can figure out how i took this pic of Mars. (hint: i did cheat, but i DID take this with my own camera)

 

[FawkesCa]

and just for kicks, ill throw this in with it

 

[adyarbakery]

hi,

I took these photos of the sky from Yosemite.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adyarbakery/4827577169/"

I found that there were streaks on the image - which could be a planet, comet or a meteor. I know it is not a planet (I checked on stellarium for that). However I can not figure out if it is a comet or a planet. These are 8 second exposures. Any idea if it is a comet or a meteor?

I tend to gravitate towards it being a comet, since it was in the sky for an extended period of time (photographs taken after 5 minutes later also showed the streak).

Any ideas how to figure out?

thanks,
ab

 

[428]

hi,

I took these photos of the sky from Yosemite.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adyarbakery/4827577169/"

I found that there were streaks on the image - which could be a planet, comet or a meteor. I know it is not a planet (I checked on stellarium for that). However I can not figure out if it is a comet or a planet. These are 8 second exposures. Any idea if it is a comet or a meteor?

I tend to gravitate towards it being a comet, since it was in the sky for an extended period of time (photographs taken after 5 minutes later also showed the streak).

Any ideas how to figure out?

thanks,
ab

Hello.
It is probably neither. Firstly, the trail in the first picture is curved and it has distinct dotted pattern. Secondly, the object appears to be moving towards (or perhaps from?) the constellation Perseus throughout the gallery. None of them look like or behave like that. My bet would be a man-made object flashing at ~1s intervals (since the are around 7 light pulses in each photo and your exposures are 8s).