Comments on: how’s a good way to use a digital camera through a telescope?

By: suitti

suitti — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:12:30 +0000

I’ve taken pictures of the Moon by holding a point and shoot digital camera to the eyepiece. Autofocus, autoexposure. I’d have much preferred to set my own exposure. Out of 120 shots, maybe 5 passable shots came out, and one best one.

These days, i have this Rube Goldberg contraption that positions the camera on the eyepiece. It actually clamps onto the eyepiece. So the eyepiece has to be firmly clamped into the focuser. And more images come out, but i still take several. The contraption bounces around alot after you touch, for example, to click the shutter button. So i use the 10 second delay feature on the camera.

My new camera has manual exposure, up to 8 seconds.

I’ve taken shots of the Sun (solar filter), Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Comet Hale Bopp (web cam on a spotting scope), and Polaris with Polaris B (Polaris doesn’t move much, so non-tracking isn’t that much of an issue - though the magnification required to split them made it difficult). Without tracking, you’re always going to be limited somehow.

By: Tina L

Tina L — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:55:58 +0000

you can take pictures by holding the lens up to the eyepiece, focusing and shooting (”afocal photography”), but that’s about it.

there used to be special brackets you could buy for this, but i don’t think they make them any more. everybody uses dslrs instead.

By: Tristan K

Tristan K — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:04:17 +0000

well thats tricky i tried it at the moon one time and it was pretty good.
you put your digital camera right beside the lens and see if you get a good aim at the moon and take the picture.its a little blury but it works.

By: kingneptune117

kingneptune117 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:22:24 +0000

id imagine it would be fine.