# Taking pictures with a telescope...



## Corry (Jun 15, 2005)

My boyfriend is wanting to use his rebel to take pictures of the stars and moon, and was wanting some info on using a telescope...so what can y'all tell me?  

Are there any particular telescopes that you reccomend, and do certain ones work with cameras, or do you just have to rig em?


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## SLOShooter (Jun 15, 2005)

They make mounts so you can jack your camera right onto the end of the scope and shoot that way.  You can also get piggy back mounts so that the camera rides on top of the scope and sees what it sees.  The disadvantage to the piggy back is that your not using the scopes optics.

Is it a film rebel or a digi rebel?


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## Skipster (Jun 15, 2005)

Most any telescope can be used for astrophotography. The tighter the mount, the better the pics will turn out. A telescope that tracks celestial objects works best for long exposure shots > 30seconds. Easiest thing to start with is a t-adapter (specific for your camera lense mount) and a basic camera adapter (specific for your eyepiece diameter). You then drop an eyepiece inside the basic camera adapter and thread it into the t-adapter. Then attach the whole unit to your camera. Pics of this simple set-up to follow.

Start with your camera.






You then need to purchase a t-adapter or t-ring that mounts to your camera.





You'll also need to purchase a basic camera adapter that fits your telescope. 1.25" are the most common. That is the diameter of the eyepiece.





This is a picture of the eyepiece before inserting it into the basic camera adapter. Note the rubber eyeguard is still attached.





This picture shows the eyeguard removed and the eyepiece inserted into the camera adapter.





This pic shows the t-adapter mounted to the camera and the basic camera adapter (with eyepiece inside) threaded into the t-adapter.





This is a crude picture of how it all mounts into the telescopes eyepiece holder.





Hope I've helped in some way or another.


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## mentos_007 (Jun 16, 2005)

Skipster! that's cool!!!!


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## PlasticSpanner (Jun 16, 2005)

core_17 said:
			
		

> Are there any particular telescopes that you reccomend, and do certain ones work with cameras, or do you just have to rig em?


 
Is he planning on buying a telescope just for this purpose!?

The best "value" telescope would be whats called a reflector (works kinda like a mirror lens) where the eyepeice is near the end of the scope thats pointing at the stars.  Get as large a diameter mirror reflector as he can afford as these will allow more light in and more detail.

And a good Equatorial mount preferably with a motor drive to track the stars automatically.

I am fortunate that my mate has the telescope and I have the camera!


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## ferny (Jun 16, 2005)

http://www.google.com/search?q=digiscoping&sourceid=opera&num=50&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8


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## Corry (Jun 16, 2005)

PlasticSpanner said:
			
		

> Is he planning on buying a telescope just for this purpose!?
> 
> The best "value" telescope would be whats called a reflector (works kinda like a mirror lens) where the eyepeice is near the end of the scope thats pointing at the stars.  Get as large a diameter mirror reflector as he can afford as these will allow more light in and more detail.
> 
> ...



No, not JUST for this purpose...he wants it to just look at the stars, as well.  
He has both the film and digi rebel, but will almost definatly be using only the digital.  Thanks for all the help, everyone...I'll show em this thread as soon as he gets back in the house...looks like some really helpful stuff here!


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## SLOShooter (Jun 16, 2005)

Digital cameras are not very good for astro-photography.  They don't have very low ISO's  which leads to horrible noise and since they're battery operated they run out of juice super fast, especially in the cold, which is what it is when your star gazing.

An older model, manual 35mm would serve you much better in this persuit.  You need something that, if it uses a battery, only uses it for the meter, and has the ability to keep the shutter open for long periods of time.  If you want to do deep sky then the time goes up into the minutes possibly 10s of minutes.  If your doing the moon then a regular shutter speed will do, and the digi will probably work OK.


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## Unimaxium (Jun 16, 2005)

SLOShooter said:
			
		

> Digital cameras are not very good for astro-photography.  They don't have very low ISO's  which leads to horrible noise and since they're battery operated they run out of juice super fast, especially in the cold, which is what it is when your star gazing.
> 
> An older model, manual 35mm would serve you much better in this persuit.  You need something that, if it uses a battery, only uses it for the meter, and has the ability to keep the shutter open for long periods of time.  If you want to do deep sky then the time goes up into the minutes possibly 10s of minutes.  If your doing the moon then a regular shutter speed will do, and the digi will probably work OK.



I don't know about that. I've seen some really good work taken by Pursuer with his digital rebel in this thread. Canon even has a new camera in Japan (and soon to be in the US I believe) that is basically a 20D that's tweaked for astrophotography, called the 20Da.


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## Skipster (Jun 16, 2005)

This is another good link he may want to check out. 

http://scopetronix.com/


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## PlasticSpanner (Jun 16, 2005)

From what I've read you should get more colour in film than digital but that may have been printed over a year ago!

It would be nice to see the results from a digital and a film aimed at the same target!


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## SLOShooter (Jun 16, 2005)

Unimaxium said:
			
		

> I don't know about that. I've seen some really good work taken by Pursuer with his digital rebel in this thread. Canon even has a new camera in Japan (and soon to be in the US I believe) that is basically a 20D that's tweaked for astrophotography, called the 20Da.



It's certainly not impossible I just wouldn't recommend it.  If your doing objects that don't require long exposures than a digital camera will be just as good as film.  At least as good as it normally would be.

I'm pretty sure that if you pitted a digital vs. film in long exposures you would end up with unacceptable noise in the black regions and you'd blow through batteries at an alarming rate.  If you want to go digital in the astro-photography area most people use cooled CCD's that are specifically made for astro-photography.


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## Digital Matt (Jun 16, 2005)

SLOShooter said:
			
		

> I'm pretty sure that if you pitted a digital vs. film in long exposures you would end up with unacceptable noise in the black regions and you'd blow through batteries at an alarming rate.  If you want to go digital in the astro-photography area most people use cooled CCD's that are specifically made for astro-photography.



The technique that Pursuer and others use is stacking a series of shorter exposures, say 30 seconds to 1 minute.  Noise is not an issue at these exposure times, at least with Canon digital slrs.

As far as batteries, my 2 batteries in my battery grip will last me 8 hours at least.  I don't think that's an issue.


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## Mitica100 (Jun 17, 2005)

I have a Canon AE1 rigged to go on a Meade ETX 90 Cassegrain/Schmidt telescope. It's a great beginner's telescope, comes with the computerized tracking base. If you have the money I'd go to an ETX 125, it's got more mirror surface, hence gathering more light.

If you want the telescope to watch the stars I suggest you also invest in a great eyepiece, made by Televue. They're more expensive than the Meade line but so much brighter, sharper and better! Do not go for extreme magnifications (the smaller the number the greater the magnification), especially under 8mm. Best range is between 8mm and 40mm (eyepieces).

Read a lot about telescopes before you invest in one.


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## SLOShooter (Jun 17, 2005)

Digital Matt said:
			
		

> The technique that Pursuer and others use is stacking a series of shorter exposures, say 30 seconds to 1 minute.  Noise is not an issue at these exposure times, at least with Canon digital slrs.
> 
> As far as batteries, my 2 batteries in my battery grip will last me 8 hours at least.  I don't think that's an issue.



I've done that before.  Except it was 1 shot red, 1 shot blue, 1 shot green with a CCD to make a composite image.

If it works, then it works.


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## pursuer (Jun 17, 2005)

SLOShooter said:
			
		

> Digital cameras are not very good for astro-photography.  They don't have very low ISO's  which leads to horrible noise and since they're battery operated they run out of juice super fast, especially in the cold, which is what it is when your star gazing.




I have to strongly disagree. Digital is defineatly the way to go, hands down. One reason being film suffers from reciprocity failure at longer exposures while digital is immune to this problem. The digi rebel is capable of taking exposeures in the 8-10min area without excess noise, that is long enougth to take SERIOUS photographs especially when exposures of these lengths are stacked. Of course a dedicated cooled CCD would be better but your talking serious dollars. Chances are the thing limiting the length of your exposures will be the quality of the mount the telescope is on. because it tracks the the sky to compensate for the earths rotation over an extended period any small errors in the tracking add up quite quickly. 

I have used my digital rebel for astrophotography in -20C canadian winters without a problem, it does die faster, but Im usually ready to call it a night before the battery and if it becomes a problem an extra battery kept in your pocket or better yet an AC adapter is an easy solution. 



			
				Core_17 said:
			
		

> My boyfriend is wanting to use his rebel to take pictures of the stars and moon, and was wanting some info on using a telescope...so what can y'all tell me?
> 
> Are there any particular telescopes that you reccomend, and do certain ones work with cameras, or do you just have to rig em?



This is a very loaded question, This is even more complicated and potetionally more expensive then buying a new camera system.
How much is he willing to spend? How portable does it have to be, is your backyard dark enougth to use it there or will he be packing it up and driving to a dark site? What kinds of objects does he plan on photographing, moon and planets, galaxies and nebulas? 

he will NEED a scope with some kind of a motor driven equatorial mount for tracking. After that the type of scope really depends on $$$, these set ups go for anywhere from 500-60,000$ for "amatuer" equipment.

What ever he gets it is best to start by piggy backing with a short focal length lens, then once he has the hang of that move up to prime focus (attachig the camera body directly to the scope), the longer the focal length the more problems there are. Avoid "through the eye piece" set ups.

Check out http://www.cloudynights.com/ there forums are the best resource for this on the net, they can answer any questions you have better the myself, Good luck 

PS, please don't judge the Digi rebel by the results I have obtained, they are definatly on the low end of what it is capable of.


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## Corry (Jun 18, 2005)

Thanks for the info everyone! I'll pass it on to him!


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## airgunr (Jun 18, 2005)

Mitica100 said:
			
		

> I have a Canon AE1 rigged to go on a Meade ETX 90 Cassegrain/Schmidt telescope. It's a great beginner's telescope, comes with the computerized tracking base. If you have the money I'd go to an ETX 125, it's got more mirror surface, hence gathering more light.
> 
> If you want the telescope to watch the stars I suggest you also invest in a great eyepiece, made by Televue. They're more expensive than the Meade line but so much brighter, sharper and better! Do not go for extreme magnifications (the smaller the number the greater the magnification), especially under 8mm. Best range is between 8mm and 40mm (eyepieces).
> 
> Read a lot about telescopes before you invest in one.


 
Interesting thread as a very good buddy of mine just got a Mead ETX70, FREE.  His next door neighbor was throwing it out in the trash can!    My buddy asked if he wanted it anymore and the guy said, no, take it.

It's got a base with batteries in it.  A computer control, tripod and 3 eye pieces.  We tried the switches and all the lights light up so we think it works.  I can't imagine why the guy was throwing it out.

Anyway, he's bringing it up next week and I want to hook up my AE-1 to it and start with some pictures of the moon.  It's the least powerful one I believe but hell, it's free...  I'm going to check out adaptors for it for the AE-1 as there is what I think is a place to connect the camera to the end of the scope.  Our only problem is there are no manuals with it but it look pretty straight forward except the computer module.

I'm going to call up Mead and see if I can order a manual and a couple of camera adaptors.  He and I both have Canon AE-1's and I have a Nikon AF camera so I'd like to get adaptors for both to mount to the scope.


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## Skipster (Jun 18, 2005)

You'll need (2) t-rings/t-adapters. 1 for the Canon, and 1 for the Nikon as the lens mounts are different. For the meade you need the #64ST adapter to attach your camera to the rear (prime focus method) or you could use the above method with a basic camera adapter for eyepiece projection.

Adapter for the Meade is $19.95US from scopetronix. You can also check out that site for other optional accessories for your ETX70.


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## airgunr (Jun 19, 2005)

Thanks, just to make sure I understand correctly.  I need 3 things.

T-Ring adaptor for Canon FD
T-Ring Adaptor for Nikon AF
#64ST adaptor for scope & T-Ring

Correct?


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## Skipster (Jun 19, 2005)

Correct.

Keep in mind that the rear of the ETX70 is plastic where the #64st adapter screws onto. Careful threading on the adapter. The larger ETX's are made of metal and less prone to damage from cross-threading.


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## airgunr (Jun 20, 2005)

Skipster said:
			
		

> Correct.
> 
> Keep in mind that the rear of the ETX70 is plastic where the #64st adapter screws onto. Careful threading on the adapter. The larger ETX's are made of metal and less prone to damage from cross-threading.


 
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.  It looks nice and clean on the threads now so I shouldn't have any problems.  I ordered the T-rings & Adaptors and they are on the way.


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