The Lunar Landscape @ 2000mm

[TheFantasticG]

Still trying to figure out this prime focus thing...

#1 - original and uncropped

2011-12-30 - Astrophotography-24.jpg by The Fantastic G, on Flickr

#2 - cropped

2011-12-30 - Astrophotography-8.jpg by The Fantastic G, on Flickr

#3 - cropped

2011-12-30 - Astrophotography-5.jpg by The Fantastic G, on Flickr

#4 - really cropped

2011-12-30 - Astrophotography-25.jpg by The Fantastic G, on Flickr

Still trying to get the hang of it. Thanks for looking.

[Killjoy]

For just having gotten your hands on a telescope, those are very nice.
Even if it is your wife's telescope.

[TheFantasticG]

Thanks, Alan.

Last night was the first time I really got to play around and try to figure out how to take some images. As soon as she figures out the tracking function, we're going to try some long exposures.

[ifly223]

What AP setting are you using on your camera? Looks like center is good and getting soft toward the edges of the moon. The moon is bright so crank that AP like in macro. Also, I know this from experience; let the scope aclimate to ambient temps or you will get abberitions from the atmosphere. Usually 20 minutes is good. You spoke about your wife getting to know the tracking functions; I SAY AGAIN (lol) proper polar alignment is key for tracking with an equatorial mount. There is no telescope in the world that will track well enough to photograph deep space objects by itself unless there is an autoguider attached. The moon, yes because its a quick exposure. You can observe all night long but not photograph. An autoguider is a ccd chip that detects light from a star as it passes over the pixels. When the star moves the chip senses this and sends commands to the telescope to compensate for this. You wifes scope has this ability if an autoguider is applied (celestron sells them). Garret, I have shot through a scope of this size made by Meade back in the days of film and got amazing results. I shot the Orion Nebulea at 1,500 million light years away and it covered nearly the entire frame of 35mm film. I shot through a Meade 8 inch LX 200 at f6.3 with a focal reducer through an Olympus OM1 with Kodak PJM 640 film at 30 minutes exposure hand guided through the key pad since I did not have an autoguider. : ) Trust me, with patience and learning you will get amazing results.

[TheFantasticG]

I have it set to F9.5 as it is as close to F10 as it can get. Yeah, we figured out last night that we are gonna have to get an autoguider. That's next on the list. I'm also going to order the "Premium Eyepiece Projection" kit from this site as there deluxe prime focus kit works pretty good. The other reason why is the Celestron 1.25" 25mm eyepiece that came with the scope is too big for the deluxe prime focus/eyepiece projection kit. And if I'm going to order the Celestron Eyepiece kit from B&H I want to be able to use them as the Wife loves the Celestron Ultima LX eyepieces (the do look at lot better than the standards).

[MT Stringer]

The only thing missing is some lunar rover tracks and a McDonald's Sign! :-)

[TheFantasticG]

More practicing with the moon:

#1

2012-01-02 035 Astrophotography.jpg by The Fantastic G, on Flickr

#2

2012-01-02 036 Astrophotography.jpg by The Fantastic G, on Flickr

#3

2012-01-02 025 Astrophotography.jpg by The Fantastic G, on Flickr

[Stargazer77517]

Wondering...are you using mirror lockup and a remote release also. Camera vib could case a bit of softness. Man thats some closeup.

[TheFantasticG]

Yup. Using mirror lock up and the IR remoted. At least, on the second batch. The first batch I had it on mirror lock up but it still sounded like it was slapping the mirror.