My new 910mm Lens - Info and photos added

[Patti Edens]

I finally got the hardware I needed to turn my telescope into a lens for my camera. The jury is still out on using it for wildlife. I don't think it is really up to that, but it'll work for the moon and maybe some planets.

It is a 910mm Celestron I bought back in 1986. On the 20D, it is 35mm equivalent of 1456mm. It has a fixed aperture of 11 and of course manual focus.

A few attempts at wildlife photography...

A White-winged Dove



A couple of hummers





A bird in flight :O) He just flew in the frame when I was shooting the clouds.



The telescope mounted on the 20D (or is it the other way around?)



The flower I was shooting in the photo above



The real reason ...

[Bayskiff]

WOW, Love the moon

[timbertoes]

Scrolling through.. all I could think was, where is the Moon shot!

any possiblity of Jupiter or Saturn Shots or a Nebula with your setup ?

[DougC]

It looks like the moon shot is the sharpest which makes sense as a telescope should be optimized for LONG distance viewing.

[Some Idiot]

the moon shot is awesome

[Patti Edens]

Thanks Johnny!

Originally Posted by timbertoes

Scrolling through.. all I could think was, where is the Moon shot!

any possiblity of Jupiter or Saturn Shots or a Nebula with your setup ?

I think so. As per a guy that does a lot of astrophotography, I can at least do the planets. I don't know about Nebulae because I would probably need a tracking device. I don't think they are bright enough. But I'm a total newbie at this, so ???

Originally Posted by DougC

It looks like the moon shot is the sharpest which makes sense as a telescope should be optimized for LONG distance viewing.

Doug, Yes, it really isn't suited for wildlife. There were some icky color casts and fringing I had to remove too. I just had to try. But, I think a lot of the fuzziness is just my inability to manually focus. I can't see worth a darn.

I really want to try Jupiter or Saturn and another thing I want to try is to get the ISS. I saw a photo a guy got with his 600mm lens and it wasn't too bad.

Thanks to all for looking and commenting.

Patti

[Shadow]

Wow, Patti! The moon is perfect. The second hummer looks quite sharp. Love the wooden tripod. Keep 'em coming...

[Patti Edens]

Thanks Rob and Bruce. I need to check to see when I can get a shot of one of the planets. That second hummer shot is pretty sharp. I think the ones that are not sharp are mostly me not being able to manually focus on a quickly moving target. I probably need to put my 50D on the end of that scope and use Live View. Darn. Wish I would have thought of that. Next time.

[Trekrider]

I thought they all were great.

[princer7]

The Live View feature is excellent with the telescope. Added an external viewer (Aputure Gigtube) to export the video and it made it even better....especially when the angle of the camera make a person stand in a contorted fashion. :) Alpine Astro sells a Bader filter to replace the stock camera hot mirror for @ $88 (DIY). Should retain the lens focus and can create a custom white balance so it can still be used as a regular camera....except also get to see cool nebula.

[Patti Edens]

Thanks Robert and Jennifer.

Jennifer, That Gigtube gizmo sounds like it would be very useful and not just for the scope. Thanks for that tip. As far as the Bader filter stuff... way over my head. But, I'll read up.

p

[danchez]

pretty cool... I'm jealous.

[Kenj8246]

The lengths we go to.

Really like the job it did on the little purple flower, Patti. That 'old' 20D in the right hands produces some nice files, huh?

Kenny

[Patti Edens]

Thanks Dan and Kenny. I still love that old 20D. It's kinda like a Timex - takes a lickin' and keeps on clickin'...

[jfoureyes]

Good series Patti!!! That's the biggest macro lens I've ever seen and talk about workin' distance..