Celestial Photography?

[NewHampshire]

With the lunar eclipse behind us I got to thinking about celestial photography. I was wondering if anyone has ever tried it.....and I am talking about outside of a long zoom and the moon, I am talking about small telescope with digital camera adapter and planest, stars and beyond. Heck, I don't even know if they MAKE adapters to fit camera to telescope (though I assume so.) I don't expect Hubble type pictures, but I am curious about what kind of results one could get from a set-up like described above. And what would a set-up like that (sans camera of course) cost?

Brian

 

[DougPaul]

Heck, I don't even know if they MAKE adapters to fit camera to telescope (though I assume so.)

I know such adapters used to be available. I suspect they still are.

You will also need a motor drive to perform long exposures.

I don't expect Hubble type pictures, but I am curious about what kind of results one could get from a set-up like described above. And what would a set-up like that (sans camera of course) cost?

I know there are active hobbyists, but I don't know much in the way of details.

There is some info at http://www.clarkvision.com/photoinfo/night.and.low.light.photography/index.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophotography

A search on the obvious bring brings up lots of hits: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=astronomical+photography&btnG=Google+Search

Doug

 

[kmorgan]

I'm an amateur astronomer and a member of a club here on Long Island. The telescope I have (a 16" Dobsonian) doesn't have tracking and as such is only good for objects (mostly the moon) that are relatively bright. That said, there are several members of my club who are very good at astrophotography, some with digital slr's (usually a Rebel XT modified to enhance the red (IR Filter Removel) ) others use CCD equipment specifically made for astrophotography. Fortunately the CCD equipment has come way down in price over the years.

The best advice is to get involved with an astronomy club and seek out the astrophotographers there for advice. It gets very involved and is quite hardware intensive.

Here are some links to get you started.

http://www.nhastro.com/
http://www.telescope.com/control/ca...onid=A6CEBB34B5D65147A12BE8E3CA861671.ivprod1
http://www.stellar-international.com/index.html
http://www.cercisastro.com/
http://www.billionsandbillions.com/
http://www.astropix.com/INDEX.HTM
http://home.cogeco.ca/~stewart.attlesey/photo/astrophoto.html
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/dslr/EOS300Dastro.html

These are the web sites of some of the members of the club I'm in: http://www.bryanbradley.com/
http://www.billbrad.tk/

Kevin

 

[Mongoose]

Here are some photos on the celestron website. It might be a little biased since they are taken with their telescopes. The photos say what camera was used and how long the exposure time was.
http://www.celestron.com/c2/images.php

 

[forestgnome]

Good links and points made about telescopic astrophotography. To drift a bit, also consider non-telescopic astrophotography. There is a tremendous difference in difficulty. You already have suffucient ability to take nice images at night. With a tripod and slr, you can capture nice images of whole constellations, northern lights, planetary conjunctions, The Milky Way and others.


There are a few tricks to learn that are specific to night work. Learn to focus without vision. Since you can't see well enough through the lens, learn to focus on infinity by looking at the barrel with a red led light. Some lenses have a mark showing infinity focus, but the mark can be slightly off.

A cable release or remote release is a good asset, but you can use the shutter delay. It's better to take the shot without touching the camera.

This was taken at ISO1600, f/2.8,20",AWB. It was my first attempt at night with digital and unfortunately I did not experiment with different settings very much. Auroral activity has been dead at our lattitude for years and it won't pick up for a couple more, but when it does, try it. It's easy to learn if you already have basic skills.

 

[NewHampshire]

Learn to focus without vision. Since you can't see well enough through the lens, learn to focus on infinity by looking at the barrel with a red led light.

Oh boy did I learn this trying to shoot the eclipse (and that was with a considerably larger glowing boject than stars!!!). I kept trying to compose the shot so the moon fell into the lower right third of the frame.....plus I accidentally left the autofocus on and every time I got the moon composed right the I would hit the shutter release and the autofocus would go crazy.

Some good advice by all. The telescopic photography worries me since it looks like yet another expensive hobby to get in to .

Brian

P.S. Forestgnome, I must admit it looks like you have a good handle on non telescopic celestial photography. The smaples on your website are very stunning!

 

[kmorgan]

Camera for light polluted skies

Check out this site:

http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/270706/98732f2d7d/1277000268/3e06f68c71/

 

[DougPaul]

Check out this site:

http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/270706/98732f2d7d/1277000268/3e06f68c71/

Looks like a monochrome sensor--monochrome sensors are about a factor of 10 faster than the corresponding color sensors. However, the output is NTSC (analog TV). In other words, the resolution isn't very good and you will need a TV card to transfer the image to your computer.

Doug

 

[Tom Rankin]

Kevin's post was great. Let me just add that I've taken quite a few astrophotos over the years, using telescopes, old style film cameras, and digital as well.

There are formulas for calculating exposure time, depending on film speed, lens size, object etc, but like Doug said, you will need a tripod for almost all your night shots, excepting deliberate shots with star streaks and the full Moon.

If you want to follow up, feel free to contact me offline.

Tom - Mid-Hudson Astronomical Association Founder, Past President, VP, Secretary, web master, yadeyadeya! http://www.midhudsonastro.org/

 

[darren]

Some of my favorite stuff is from Howard Cox on photo.net:

http://photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=525959

Although every time I look at his stuff it makes me want to go out and spend $1600 on a telescope. UGH!

- darren