Astrophotography help

Hi all,
pretty new to astronomy and need a bit of advice, hope you can help..
Recently upgraded to 9" celestron sm. cass. computerised scope and am aiming to try my hand at astrophotography... (IF THESE CLOUDS EVER BREAK!!!).... any advice on type of camera adaptors etc.... I have established that i need a 35mm SLR (whatever that means) camera, a T ring, and a .T adaptor.. (correct me if i am wrong).. Do all adaptors fit all cameras and scopes?

Do i need a tele extender or guider scope??? (and what are they?) What camera would you recommend? and where would i get adaptors and things i need? .... I know i know... so many questions, so little time!!

Thanks for your time in reading this and forgive my ignorance



[/quote]

Maygray (do you have a name?) - welcome to the boards!

I think the first question to ask yourself is "what images do I want to take?".

If its pretty pictures of bright stuff, then what you propose seems OK. Others will give you the pluses/minuses of various DSLR's.

If you want to do deep sky stuff, then you'll need to characterise your system - collimation, polar alignment, periodic error. If they are good, then get either a good DSLR or a CCD camera. Then you should be OK. Of course, there are a million other items to spend your money on too like solar filters, narrowband and broadband filters, an electronic focuser, filter wheel, ad infinitum.

If you want to get into science, there's a ton of stuff you can do on the cheap but if you go to Whirlpool you'll find out a lot more.

You'll have a lot more questions soon enough

HTH

Dave

Hi Maygray,
Welcome to the site.

I got into astrophotography just under a year ago and I found
this site and more importantly the helpfullness of the people here
invaluable.

Dave asks a very good question.
What is it you are interested in photographing?

This will help you choose the right gear for what you need.

A good first step is to search the web for images you are interested in taking yourself.
Most astrophotographers will state the gear they used and how they took shot.

A DSLR is a Digital Single Lense Reflex.
(such as a Canon EOS 350D )
This camera is excellent for taking shots of the sky without a telescope.
(for wide field stuff like conjunctions, starfields, startrails, NLC's etc.)
It's also good for deep sky but as Dave was saying there.
But for deep sky, you'll need a scope mounted on (usually) a
rock solid pier and the tracking will have to be BANG on so as not to
get wobbles etc that can ruin long exposures.

You can however get great shots of the Moon with a DLSR attached to
your scope.
basically, you take the lense off and attach the body to the camera adapter on
the scope (now it's a powerfull telescopic zoom camera!)
This is called 'Prime Focus' photography.

If you want to photograph the planets.
then the best thing to use is a Philips Spc900 webcam.
Basically you take the webcam, pop off the focus ring and attach an
adapter that lets you pop the thing into you scopes eyepiece.

What you are trying to do here is capture a min or two of a movie (AVI)
of the object.
Then you process the AVI in a piece of software called 'Registax'
to gleen an image.

This is all very brief but I hope it helps in some way...

Don't be afraid to ask any questions you might have...

Regards,

Thanks for replys... been a great help... ill let ye know how im gettin on.
no doubt ill be askin heaps more questions... Kevin is the name by the way, from galway...

Hold the Phone! You dont need an slr to partake in astrophotgraphy!!! ive been snapping pics of the moon and saturn with my digi cam for 2 years!!! also a webcam is great! If you come to the next galway astronomy club meeting there will be lots of VERY experienced astrophotographers such as Trevor Durity there!!!!

Different cameras are better for different objects
Webcam-Planets, Moon(mosaic), Sun(with filter of course!)
Slr-Nebulae, galaxies,clusters,moon,sun etc. and others without telescope!
CCD camera....all of the above but you pay for them$$$$!!!

Hope this helps....Really tho come to the next meeting! trevor has a fantastic imaging setup! Unfortunately i wont be there myself(in spain!!!!) I aint absolutely useless when it comes to this...just useless! No only joking!

Matthew

Hold the Phone! You dont need an slr to partake in astrophotgraphy!!!
Matthew

Deja Vue!

I was told this on Thursday by Kieran, he has kindly offered the use of his permament setup and webcam etc for me to use with my ETX105 to start me off in astrophotography and see what suits me! According to Kieran (and that's good enough for me considering his wonderful images!) a web cam is great for planetary shots through the 105 and after a bit more experience, I'd be able to take widefields of the Milky Way (I live in the middle of the country and have very little LP! Yes, I am very popular with the EAAS observing group, I also have a kettle )

All my shots so far have been handheld and I can only play the cute beginner for so long so thank the powers that be that Kieran and his amazing knowledge lives within spitting distance from me!