[lazydays]

Anybody here do astrophotography? I've been looking at a simple CCD for my telescope, but seem to always stay confused when they throw all that data at you.
gary

[chadh]

I was all gung-ho about this at one stage as well, but quickly became confused.

I decided to start out the easy (and inferior) way.  As I had no digital SLR camera, I purchased a relatively cheap adapter that allowed me to attach my point-and-shoot digital camera directly to the eye-piece of my 6" Newtonian telescope.  This worked surprisingly well, partly because I have no motor for my telescope and so can only hope to capture relatively near objects. 

If you were interested in this kind of adapter, just to get your feet wet, I got mine from a place in North Carolina called Camcor.  Here's an example of the sort of thing you can use: http://www.camcor.com/cgi-bin/cat/id=1130432106

Here are a couple of shots that I've taken of the moon.  They're not great, but it was fun.






If you wanted to use film, apparently the Olympus OM-1 is the classic astrophotographer's camera, and these are readily available on E-Bay.  But it seems that appropriate film for doing relatively long-range images is becoming scarce. 

Chad

[nathanm]

If there's clouds in front of the moon will a telescope render both objects in focus?  I know nothing of telescopes but there's been a few moon-peeking through-clouds moments that I wished I could've captured.

[lazydays]

If there's clouds in front of the moon will a telescope render both objects in focus?  I know nothing of telescopes but there's been a few moon-peeking through-clouds moments that I wished I could've captured.

with my scope (a Meade ) it will be sorta hazey. I don't observe the moon all that much in the summer months, but when I have the haze was there. Now I'd say that if the clouds were thick it still would come out just fine. Right now I'm watching planets and a few stars, and learning. From what I've been able to gather the best photos seem to come out of refractors (which I don't own).
    With astronomy you must remember that it's a steep learning curve that is constantly changing. Yet has many similies with photography. They use a lot of filters and take very long (timewise) shots. Usually layering them ontop of each other in Photoshop. Wish I could find a good book to read on the subject.
gary