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Yes!!!! I made my decision. Now I'm going to exercise some restraint and order later this week. To make sure I got it right.Orion StarBlast 6iA 6" tabletop reflector with 750mm focal length and push-to capabilities ($460)It blows through the budget, but isn't it always like that? And my budget didn't include accessories like bags....And a big bonus... My father is giving me his Nikon d60 DSLR with some Nikkor lenses. I'm sure you camera buffs won't think this is a great camera, but from what I've read its pretty good and should meet my needs.Thank you all for your help and patience! I'll be looking into all the info you provide.
Here is the adapter mount. I was surprised that was all I need. Intuitively it doesn't seem strong enough to hold the camerahttp://www.telescope.com/catalog/product.jsp?itemUUID=99f1083aedae48978fb665771c8d164e&subCategoryId=62&parentCategoryId=0&categoryId=4&quantity=1&productVariantId=146775&productId=5205
I just got back from the Black Forest Star Party bfsp.org. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb2rzfRB3-AThe weather for the party was dreadful, but Monday night was awesome.Almost perfect weather conditions. DARK DARK SKY. Milky Way from horizon to horizon. [cut]
Your Starblast 6 is not a greatchoice of scope if you want to try to take pictures of anything other than the moon and maybe some planets. (although to be fair, there really isn't anything in your original budget that is workable for astrophotography in the first place) You can certainly try to hook your camera up, but I'd caution you to keep your expectations very low to start with - in fact you might not even be able to achieve focus with just a t-ring. If you can, then taking stills of the moon or else using it as a video camera to try to take some sequences of planets (which you then post-process/stack to get a single usable image) would be the place to start.
That's all I'm hoping for- moon, Saturn, Jupiter, mars. My tentative plan was to have it take a sequence of stills automatically and stack them. I'm really not expecting much, visual or photo, at first since there will be a ton of light pollution.
in fact you might not even be able to achieve focus with just a t-ring. If you can, then taking stills of the moon or else using it as a video camera to try to take some sequences of planets (which you then post-process/stack to get a single usable image) would be the place to start.
That's right! The T-mount is kind of a universal accessory converter, and you'll still need a telescope/microscope adapter to "grab" the tube through which you look. The scope and eyepiece the become the "lens" which projects the image into the camera sensor. Whatever dial you use to focus when looking through the scope is the same one you used to focus the image into the camera. If memory serves me correctly when you look through the scope-mounted camera the image will be REALLY dark, so don't blow your night vision checking AC on your iPad.
Interesting - I had no idea there was a big dark zone right in the middle of PA. I was looking at the dark sky maps yesterday and it's almost comical how the US is divided in half at the Mississippi - east of that dark zones are hard to come by. Edit: looking again, the dividing line isn't actually the Mississippi - it's well west of that running north from Dallas through Oklahoma up to Fargo. Very cool overlay for google maps here http://djlorenz.github.io/astronomy/lp2006/overlay/dark.htmlWe have a small off-grid cabin in southern CO that has skies that look to be about comparable to that location, although we do get a bit of glow in the N and S horizons that probably wouldn't be there in the Black Forest park. If anyone hasn't experienced being in a dark location on a clear night with no moon, I strongly urge you to try to achieve it. Astronomy has kinda replaced audio for me as a current active pursuit, but honestly the single biggest/best experience IMHO is just getting to a dark site, looking up and being completely unable to do anything but say 'WOW'.
Almost. T-mount replaces camera lens, and is designed to accept a whole host of generic accessories. You can't hook the T-mount direct to the scope. Get something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Adapter-T2-Telescope-Camera-Eyepiece-Projection-Prime-Focus-Photo-DKA4-/380919233806?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item58b08e3d0eand thread it into the T-mount. Remove the eyepiece from the scope tube, slide the tube over the scope tube, reinstall the eyepiece (I forget what scope heads call it; Barlow, maybe?) and attach camera body to the T-mount.Ultimately the rig should look like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nikon-camera-2-telescope-eyepiece-adapter-4-Prime-focus-projection-photography-/261550222911?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3ce59bae3fThis is what I remember from dabbling in scopes some 20 years ago.
