Stargazing Expert Astrophotography Tips & Discussions | Share Your Photos!

[Chronos]

A camera adapter should solve the problem, lanman - e.g.,
http://www.telescope.com/shopping/p...=PRODUCT&iMainCat=3&iSubCat=240&iProductID=73

 

[Telmerk]

Need help about digital cameras

Dear Astrophotographer-Forumers!

A would like to get some help from You! I need a digital camera for my work that has the following capabilities:

- Minimum 1fps image capturing rate
- ...at 2MP size at least.
- and all these thing WITHOUT any external control (I mean PC-conrtol, or something else. Just the camera on its own.)
- and this should work for at least 2 hours.

Do you know any type of camera that can match these things?
I hope you can help!

Thank so much in advance!

Kind regards,

T. the M.

 

[russ_watters]

I'm not sure such a thing is possible - the problem is memory. Shooting 1sec, 2mp exposures for 2 hours will require 30 gigs of it. You may be able to do it with a hard drive equipped digital video camera, but I'm not sure if they are that programmable.

 

[Telmerk]

Dear Russ_Waters,

Yes, I considered this problem, but I can imagine, that it is possible to change the memory card (SD, for example) when it is needed. The camera signs with a beep, or something. . .

Of course I can make a compromise, if there is something that can do it at a lower fps.

Many thanks,

Telmerk

 

[chemisttree]

Perhaps you should look at stand alone, high resolution, wireless, security cameras. googled it here.

 

[russ_watters]

Well, if swapping out the card is an option, you can use a DSLR.

 

[Yannick]

I don't have to much experience in astrophotography, but here are two pictures i would like to show you:

1. Comet 17P Holmes (1. Nov., 23:00 GMT), stack of 60 Photos with 30 seconds exposure, f=200mm SLR objective mounted on a FLI Maxcam CM7 CCD camera. The "spiral" was probably caused by a hot pixel or dark current. 30 dark frames combined and subtracted from the image. I would have wished to be able to take photos with the telescope, but the guiding turned out to be too inaccurate...

2. Moon mosaic. Same ccd camera as for the comet. Telescope: 5" Mak-Cass
(! Filesize !) http://www.astrospectroscopy.com/unterseiten/bilder/mondmosaik.jpg"

I hope you can understand my poor English

Yannick

 

[russ_watters]

Great moon mosaic.

 

[turbo]

Yannick, I agree with Russ (at least on this non-political issue) That is a wonderful image! Here is a site that is inhabited by some of the best amateur astrophotographers in the world (not an overstatement!), and you should start posting your stuff there.
http://forum.ourdarkskies.com/

One of our members (Noel Carboni of Florida) is a post-processing genius and he and his astophotographer partner Greg (in England) have produced some of the most amazing images you've ever seen. They have a book in the works that will be a best-seller amongst astronomers (and not necessarily just amateurs). Once you are a member of ODS, Noel will give you (FREE, yes, really FREE) a set of his actions for Photoshop that will help you get the most out of your images. The web-master, Vincent, is a good guy and fun to deal with, too. Come on over. Neutrino (a member here) invited me to go there a year or two ago, and I appreciate that heads-up!

 

[IsotropicSpinManifol]

I took a picture of Jupiter's moons without a telescope. This is from my 300 mm zoom lens on my Canon Digital Rebel:
http://orbitsimulator.com/orbiter/jupiter.jpg

thats cool. It would be an awesome party trick.

 

[baywax]

Possible ancestors of the Milky Way: Hubble

Hi.

I thought this might be of interest to those of you who haven't seen this article.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/babyversionsofmilkywayspotted

Great photos everyone! Very enjoyable and educationable... eh?!

 

[NerfMonkey]

Second attempt at photographing the moon (holding a digicam to the eyepiece):

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/5214/telescoping11208006tc2.jpg

The shadowed part was actually also visible but when I turned up the brightness on the camera enough to see it the cratered side became white and blinding and I lost all the detail.

 

[russ_watters]

It's been a crappy winter so far, so this is my first deep-sky image since the fall. It is my first HaRGB image and the first time I combined multiple different exposure lengths in one luminance image (to avoid blowing-out the core). It is M-42, taken with my DSI II Pro and ED80 and a .63 focal reducer. Obviously, coma is a problem with the focal reducer. I need to either go easier on the reduction or find one that works with an APO (instead of one that's designed for a CAT).

The image is 30x5sec, 20x30sec Ha; 20x10s R; 20x15s G,B. I also took some 45 sec Ha that I didn't use in the final image.

I also took two panes of the Flame/Horshead nebulas in Ha. Hopefully I can do the color later this week (I only get about 4 hours before Orion goes behind my house).

 

[yiuscott]

Hi

I am a beginner in astronomy and so my pictures are no way as impressive as the other member's...

I took this just before christmas. It was a full moon. I took it using a Orion skyview pro 6" I think the scope was slightly out of collimation that day...

 

[russ_watters]

That's a darn good start. What kind of camera did you use?

 

[yiuscott]

Its a three year old digital camera, Lumix fx-8.
I took it using the scenary setting...

 

[turbo]

For those with telescopes who don't want to deal with prime-focus photography just yet, you can still get some pretty nice shots of the heavens using piggy-back photography. Before I had the proper equipment to do prime-focus photography, I used to piggyback my Bronica on my JSO telescope and do long exposures of fairly wide areas of the sky. Unless you have a short focal-length telescope, or want to produce mosaics, it would be difficult to get images like this. This is the North America nebula and surrounding area. I scanned the print (which has faded and browned a bit over the years) and photoshopped it to bring the colors back into balance.

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x318/turbo-1/NAneb.jpg

 

[twinsen]

Yer piggybacking a camera lens is a great way to start off in astrophotography. Heres one of the orion nebula taken with a 300mm f4 canon lens.

Alex

 

[turbo]

Very nice!

 

[yiuscott]

I took this photo of Jupiter using a Nikon D60 by prime focus through a Orion Skyview Pro 6.

 

[twinsen]

Thats a superb shot considering the equipment. To image the planets though you really need a very large image scale. This means a smaller fov which is more easily obtained with cameras with smaller sensors like webcams. DSlr are more suited to widefield images. Also with a webcam you can employ a technique called 'lucky imaging' where you take lots of frames of the planet. Because the atmosphere distorts the image you can pick the best frames with the highest resolution and then stack them in procesing software. This way you can get to see actual details on the planets :)

Alex

 

[NOBARTHOLEM]

do you know where i can find a picture of the deep space image, or whatever its called. I want to analyze it. You know the one by the Hubble space telescope. i couldn't find it on the NASA site or on google, if you can help me out i'll be looking.

 

[turbo]

do you know where i can find a picture of the deep space image, or whatever its called. I want to analyze it. You know the one by the Hubble space telescope. i couldn't find it on the NASA site or on google, if you can help me out i'll be looking.

Are you talking about the UDF? If so, here is a link.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/07/image/a/

 

[sanphy]

i want to make an astronomical telescope, can anybody help, give any specifications

 

[bobmerhebi]

Hello guys.

I would just like to share with you my images & webstie.

Direct link to my images: http://picasaweb.google.com/BOBMerhebi

Website: www.astrobob.tk[/URL]

I will be glad to read you comments or suggestions.

Thank you,
BOB

 

[PalashD]

I just saw all the 16 pages full of these awesome pics and I am going to do it again !
They are just great!

I hope I can get a good camera some day and take such great pics!

 

[3dfan]

astrophotography is my hobby, i like to collect photos of space objects and thaks for useful links, I am kinda newbie at it

 

[quddusaliquddus]

Hi all :D. I wanted to know - is it very expensive to take photos of planets in general? What would be the minimum cost (approx) required for a noob?

 

[Telmerk]

Hi all,

Does anybody knows how to attach a CANON EOS 1000D onto a MEADE APO 152/1370 telescope? The telescope has a 2'' focuser drawtube. Many thanks, TtM

 

[bobmerhebi]

Hi all :D. I wanted to know - is it very expensive to take photos of planets in general? What would be the minimum cost (approx) required for a noob?

Hey there,

No its NOT necessarily. I have been an amateur astrophotographer for about more than a year now. I got my first digi cam; a Canon G9, although its expensive but you can find other than this that you can use. My first astrophoto was using my Canon EOS 750QD which is around 10 years old & still new with me. I took photos of the Partial Solar Eclipse back in 2006 & then got the digi files from the studio & processed them on my pc.

You can aslo purchase a fully mechanical cam (that doesn't use a battery for the bulb setting, of course if you know how to use such cams althoug I don't recommend a beginner to start with those) for a very cheap price.

make sure to check out my work on my flickr account: www.astrobobalbum.tk[/url] & my website: [PLAIN]www.astrobob.tk

if you need any help, please don't hesitate to ask me. :)

hope I answered you

 

[bobmerhebi]

Hi all,

Does anybody knows how to attach a CANON EOS 1000D onto a MEADE APO 152/1370 telescope? The telescope has a 2'' focuser drawtube. Many thanks, TtM

How to ? Easy. You just need to search for a cam-telescope adapter. its called by some a telescope adapter & others call it a cam adapter.

you get either a kit or the parts individually. I personally recommend the kit. It consists or the adpater + a T-ring that fits you cam from one end & the telescope from another. You can get the T-ring of your choice when ordering. As you will need different T-Rings for Different Eyepiece sized (i.e.; 1.25" or a 2").

I hope i also answered you

you can stay updated on my website that I included in the previous post, as I will sometime soon add my equipment pictures to it.

Cheers :)

 

[russ_watters]

Hi all :D. I wanted to know - is it very expensive to take photos of planets in general? What would be the minimum cost (approx) required for a noob?

People (like me) start out in astrophotography with a decent webcam and telescope. For a few hundred dollars, you can take pretty good pictures of the moon and planets.

 

[russ_watters]

We had some rare good weather last week and I captured my first good deep space photo in a while. This is an edge-on spiral galaxy. It is about 5 hours total exposure.

 

[baywax]

We had some rare good weather last week and I captured my first good deep space photo in a while. This is an edge-on spiral galaxy. It is about 5 hours total exposure.

Incredible job Russ. Hot diggity dog man... that is deluxe!

How did you avoid light pollution?

If you want dead black skies... try up in south central BC, Canada.

 

[russ_watters]

Thanks.

I don't avoid light pollution, it is a real problem for me. The exposure details are in the pic, but the Luminance channel is only 4 minutes per subframe, which is all I can typically do with my camera and skies (and tracking on my mount...) without washing out the image (actually, the weather was so good, I probably could have done longer this time). Signal to noise ratio is then built by combining multiple exposures instead of taking one longer one.

And though it is a problem, it isn't quite as big a problem as you might think: light pollution adds a flat light to the entire frame, including where the galaxy is, so it brightens the galaxy as well. As a result, you can subtract out the light pollution with software and be left with what the image would have looked like without it. In theory, anyway...

 

[Telmerk]

How to ? Easy. You just need to search for a cam-telescope adapter. its called by some a telescope adapter & others call it a cam adapter.

I hope i also answered you
Cheers :)

Many thanks, Bob, I need to know if a simple so-called T2 adapter solves the problem or not. Hopefully yes, today I going to have a look at the telescope.
Clear Skies, TtM

 

[Sorry!]

We had some rare good weather last week and I captured my first good deep space photo in a while. This is an edge-on spiral galaxy. It is about 5 hours total exposure.

holy crap that is amazing... wish i could take photos like this. or even see with my own eyes stuff like this

 

[russ_watters]

Many thanks, Bob, I need to know if a simple so-called T2 adapter solves the problem or not. Hopefully yes, today I going to have a look at the telescope.
Clear Skies, TtM

It really is that simple. Orion has them: http://www.telescope.com/control/pr...es/~pcategory=astro-imaging/~product_id=A0317

You'll want to double-check what connections the back of your telescope came with, though. It is fairly typical for them to come with that threaded female connection as a component of the focuser, but if not, you'll need this too: http://www.telescope.com/control/pr...es/~pcategory=astro-imaging/~product_id=05270

 

[russ_watters]

holy crap that is amazing... wish i could take photos like this. or even see with my own eyes stuff like this

Thanks - you can't see stuff like that with your eyes, though, you can only take pictures of them, which is why I spend much more time having a camera look through my telescope than using my eyes. I said 5 hours exposure, but I guess since I did the colors separately and stacked multiple exposures, it is really the equivalent of about 1 hour. But that still makes it many thousands of times more light captured (brighter) than what you can see with your eyes.

 

[baywax]

But that still makes it many thousands of times more light captured (brighter) than what you can see with your eyes.

How old is the light from that disc galaxy?

 

[russ_watters]

49 million years.

 

[Sorry!]

Thanks - you can't see stuff like that with your eyes, though, you can only take pictures of them, which is why I spend much more time having a camera look through my telescope than using my eyes. I said 5 hours exposure, but I guess since I did the colors separately and stacked multiple exposures, it is really the equivalent of about 1 hour. But that still makes it many thousands of times more light captured (brighter) than what you can see with your eyes.

ohhh i missed the exposure time. Still that is quite amazing. I'm wondering as I've never had a telescope before how do you keep the galaxy in the frame? since it would be moving relative to where your telescope was originally positioned... i assume some sort of equipment follows it for you?

 

[russ_watters]

I'm wondering as I've never had a telescope before how do you keep the galaxy in the frame? since it would be moving relative to where your telescope was originally positioned... i assume some sort of equipment follows it for you?

The telescope is motorized and aligned to the Earth's rotation axis, so theoretically should be able to passively follow an object across the sky. Realistically, the tracking accuracy required is impossible to do passively, so I have a second telescope and camera mounted on the first and my laptop sends constant tracking corrections to keep the object centered.

 

[baywax]

The telescope is motorized and aligned to the Earth's rotation axis, so theoretically should be able to passively follow an object across the sky. Realistically, the tracking accuracy required is impossible to do passively, so I have a second telescope and camera mounted on the first and my laptop sends constant tracking corrections to keep the object centered.

Most cool!

49 million year old light. Is it a kind of crusty light?!

So this one is not to far out from our own. Did you give us the name yet? Just wondered.. I may have read the post after a Friday night

edit: Does it mean that 49 million years ago, if there were telescopes and people around, no one would be able to see that galaxy... because the light had not reached us yet?

 

[russ_watters]

So this one is not to far out from our own.

No, not really - and it is one of the dimmer/further one's I've captured. 60MLY is the furthest I've captured. But there are a lot of galaxies within that distance!

Did you give us the name yet? Just wondered.. I may have read the post after a Friday night

No name that I'm aware of, just that 4 number catalog designation in the file name: NGC4565.

edit: Does it mean that 49 million years ago, if there were telescopes and people around, no one would be able to see that galaxy... because the light had not reached us yet?

No, the galaxy itself is billions of years older than that, so if we had looked at it 49 million years ago, we'd just see it slightly older than it is now.

 

[Sorry!]

The telescope is motorized and aligned to the Earth's rotation axis, so theoretically should be able to passively follow an object across the sky. Realistically, the tracking accuracy required is impossible to do passively, so I have a second telescope and camera mounted on the first and my laptop sends constant tracking corrections to keep the object centered.

That is so awesome. I shall add that to my list of things I want to buy at some point in my life. :D

 

[thomasxc]

these are taken with a nikon d40 (6.1 MP) and a 70-300 manual focus telephoto lens. as for the one with the stars, i could see none of those with the naked eye. that one was a 30 second exposure.

 

[thomasxc]

during this time of year, its hard for me to get much. (i am in north central florida..)i have no problem with light pollution. it's just that my elevation is almost nothing, like 300 feet.

 

[turbo]

Has anybody here gotten high-quality images of NGC 101? The ones taken by the UK Schmidt camera might be nice, but when they were digitized, the fine details got lost in pixelation. I'm not employed in astrophysics, but this system is of concern to me and my collaborators as we develop our 2nd paper on interacting galaxies.

 

[russ_watters]

Here's my best Jupiter yet. Unfortunately, I screwed up with my filters and only shot red and green (the filters are in a wheel and not labeled by color), but fortunately, Jupiter is mostly red, so it still looks reasonably good. The moons are Europa and Io