telescopes

[Chip]

anyone have a telescope they can take pictures with ? care to discuss sub $500 telescopes ? reflector most likely, but don't know if anything reflector worth owning costs less than 500. thanks.

 

[Tom Rankin]

anyone have a telescope they can take pictures with ? care to discuss sub $500 telescopes ? reflector most likely, but don't know if anything reflector worth owning costs less than 500. thanks.

Chip, I can give you the short answer here, or the long answer next time we get together!

If you had not said photography, I would have suggested a medium size refractor, but yes, a medium size reflector might be better. There are 'hybrid' scopes as well, called SCTs.

Most telescopes will let you take pictures, but you usually have to buy an inexpensive adapter, to hook up your particular camera with the scope. Many digital cameras (at least inexpensive P&S models), are not well suited to this. For starters, you probably can't even find an adapter for them, and they frequently do not have a mode where the shutter will stay open long enough.

I've found that the biggest single factor to enjoying a small to medium size telescope, for viewing or photography is - the mount. If your scope has a crappy mount, you will not get much out of it. Get a good mount!

There are newer, whiz-bang ($$$) scopes that will do everything for you except perc your coffee!

You can even direct remote telescopes via the internet to capture images for you.

Ok, I'm starting to get into the long form...

 

[DougPaul]

I've done a small amount of astrophotography with a DSLR, an appropriate lens (long FL for individual objects, medium-to-short FL for star fields), and a fairly sturdy tripod. Just got Jupiter with two moons a few days ago and may try again in the next few nights if the seeing is good.

If you want to take long exposures, you will need to have a motorized equatorial mount (telescope or camera)--otherwise you just get star trails.

A nice tutorial on astrophotography with camera equipment:
http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/tutorials/astrophotography.html

The moon:

Canon Digital Rebel XT, F/5.6, 1/400 sec, ISO 100, 480mm eFL, RAW
contrast enhancement and sharpening. 100% crop.
(6 Dec 2006)

Lunar eclipse:

Canon Digital Rebel XTi, F/5.6, .5sec, ISO 1600, eFL 312mm, 100% crop. (20 Feb 2008)

I also have the Jupiter shot and some star fields--but I don't see how to attach them. I'll add them later if I can figure it out.

Doug