Digiscoping - newbie!

[GeX]

Hi all.

I'm off to the lakes in a few days to see me mam, the house is well away from large towns and so there is little to no light pollution. I know there is a telescope at the house. I fancy having a play with digiscoping, specifically with the intention of taking photos of the stars / moon.

I don't know the type of telescope it is, and my camera kit is a d50 with kit lens (sigma 10-20 - not much use for this i fear!), i have a small tripod, and also have a remote.

Would love to hear from people who have done this before, and any tips they can offer?

 

[AtlanticP]

Hi Mate, I used to do this with firstly an 8" reflector telescope then I got a Mead ETX125. I started off by getting myself a Barlow adapter that fitted to my Canon DSLR then mounted this to the telescope, The lens is removed by the way. You should be able to get the same for your camera but it would help to know what telescope you have although I would have.

This is basically what you would need:

It should fit pretty much any telescope as well.

 

[Bluelion]

What do you use on the Meade then AtlanticP? Something different, I'm quite interested in this myself, I reckon the resolving power of something like a 14" meade LX200 must be pretty good for daylight work

How do these Barlow adapters work? I assume they mount to the camera's standard mount, and blank off (with glass) the body so its not exposed to dust all the time?

 

[AtlanticP]

Hi Mate,

I used it mainly for looking at stars, the moon and Saturn. They are bloody awesome for looking at terrain level things though the focus can be a pain. The adapter goes into the camera body to replace the lens, it then replaces the Barlow (eyepiece) of the scope. You use the scope to focus and not the camera. The dont have any glass on them, well at least the one I had didn't.
The Meade was awesome but a right pain to set up etc so that it tracked what you were looking at.

 

[Hodders]

Post some shots - this looks very interesting !

 

[AtlanticP]

Post some shots - this looks very interesting !

Here's 2 that I have left of the scopes:

The 8" Reflector telescope Cost £150.00 from a local photography store.

The Meade ETX125 Electronically guided Scope Cost £1000.00 when I got it, should be cheaper now though.

Some images taken with the above scopes:

The reflector telescope was a pita because I had to culminate it so damn often. The Meade was nice and clear, this was motorised which didn't work too well with long exposures and again was a complete pita to set up with the equatorial mount etc.

May get another one at some point because its almost surreal sitting in your yard looking at Saturn's rings in real time and not on the net or on the tele. Would definitely recommend anyone that enjoys photography to give this ago. Its not that expensive to get into with the entire kit, adapters and reflector telescope etc coming in at less than £200.00.

 

[Hodders]

Both, I spent about an hour a week ago in the garden with a large glass of whisky just staring at the moon. I'd love to see what kind of pictures can be got and also the equipment needed.....

 

[AtlanticP]

Updated the previous thread buddy

By the way, all were taken with a Canon 400D, Remote control a £12.00 t-ring adapter.