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Metajo Cum Dumpster posted:Also, I have a $50 Celestron 8-24 zoom that works pretty drat well for being 1/4 the price of the Baader click-stop. Hardly any noticeable difference in image quality looking at Jupiter through it at ~21mm vs my 21mm Baader, just slightly smaller fov. I tried an Orion zoom eyepiece a year ago and got really frustrated with the 35° FOV, so I guess I assumed the cheaper zooms were crap. Good to hear that one works well though, it may be a much better buy for someone starting out.
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Aug 31, 2010 00:19
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Clear skies in my part of the world tonight, and a quick check on stellarium shows a nice conjunction of the Moon and Pleiades. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to capture this, but I have a good night to work it out. edit - Moon not to scale, looks like I had 'scale moon' on. Still a good view though! I'll try that first and then look at either the Elephants trunk or Iris nebulas for an imaging session if the neighbours horrible tree isn't getting in the way. Jekub fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Aug 31, 2010 |
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Aug 31, 2010 16:45
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Well I'm going to take the plunge into some beginner moon and planetary shots. I ripped apart a webcam and got it working as a prime focus CCD. Of course, the clouds moved in so I probably won't get to try it for the next few months.
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Sep 7, 2010 03:37
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So excited, my Nexstar bundle arrives Thursday. Can't wait to dive in and participate a bit!
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Sep 8, 2010 02:02
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Loztblaz posted:Well I'm going to take the plunge into some beginner moon and planetary shots. I ripped apart a webcam and got it working as a prime focus CCD. Of course, the clouds moved in so I probably won't get to try it for the next few months. Which webcam did you get? I've been seeing a lot of people picking up Microsoft's HD Lifecam as it can be fitted into the body of 1.25" eyepiece very easily, it looks like a good easy mod to go for. There are instructions here for how to do the mod.
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Sep 8, 2010 17:43
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Jekub posted:Which webcam did you get? I've been seeing a lot of people picking up Microsoft's HD Lifecam as it can be fitted into the body of 1.25" eyepiece very easily, it looks like a good easy mod to go for. There are instructions here for how to do the mod. I used a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 that I had laying around, it used to be a hacked together security camera when I lived in a shittier area. Looks like we found the same website, here's the conversion for this webcam. The HD Lifecam is way slicker though, fitting into the eyepiece tube like that is really neat. The image quality seems better too, I may pick one up after messing with this one a bit.
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Sep 8, 2010 17:50
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Because I've been far too busy trying to learn how one goes about this mysterious task known as 'studying', I haven't done a single thing astronomical of late other than walk outside during a long blackout we had yesternight and be sad about how many more stars are easily visible when there isn't a ton of glare from streetlights etc anywhere you try to look! Under the pretense of tidying up my apartment I assembled everything and took a proper photo; here's to shamelessly showing off some more (click for bigger):  I'm interested in seeing some results from that webcam hack of yours, Loztblaz, I'm sort of anticipating how fuckoff expensive the QHY IMG2S will be when it's released (supposedly this month) - it's an ICX285 camera, so it could cost $2000+ if they so choose, but the other IMG cameras have been somewhat reasonably priced, so it ought to depend on what the sensor price delta really is. I want a cheap cooled autoguider that can also do some tricks on its own 
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Sep 10, 2010 20:29
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Wolf on Air posted:I'm interested in seeing some results from that webcam hack of yours, Loztblaz, I'm sort of anticipating how fuckoff expensive the QHY IMG2S will be when it's released (supposedly this month) - it's an ICX285 camera, so it could cost $2000+ if they so choose, but the other IMG cameras have been somewhat reasonably priced, so it ought to depend on what the sensor price delta really is. I want a cheap cooled autoguider that can also do some tricks on its own My first attempt turned out pretty poo poo. I was having trouble getting it to focus, my scope started dewing up pretty fast, and I was using a crappy program to record with. I'll be trying again the next clear night I get with wxAstroCapture and a longer adapter on the webcam so I don't have to turn the focus knob seven miles when I switch between eyepiece and webcam.
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Sep 10, 2010 22:06
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New M31 picture from the other night. This time I got M32 in there as well. About 105 minutes of exposure stacked. No filters or lenses.  Click here for the full 1000x1503 image. Crusty_mabiba fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Sep 16, 2010 |
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Sep 16, 2010 15:56
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My latest, the Iris Nebula in Cepheus, reprocessed with the aid of a much more experienced friend last night. Click here for the full 1200x825 image.
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Sep 17, 2010 15:01
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I got my first scope (Celestron Omni XLT 150) this week and took it out for a test run tonight. I got a great look at the moon and I think I was able to make out Jupiter but it was hard to know for certain using the default 25mm eye piece. So now I'm looking for one or two new eye pieces and maybe a barlow. Are there any specific focal lengths I should look for? I also got the t-ring and t-adapter for my dSLR. But when I hooked it up I couldn't get it to focus. Which makes sense, there is no lens to focus the light. How do I correct this? Use a barlow with the t-adapter? It looks like I can fit 1.25" eye piece inside the adapter too if it was short enough, do they sell lenses for this? Lastly, how am I suppose to polar align my mount? I thought I understood it but once I got outside I realized that Polaris is pretty much at a 90 deg angle, I don't think my mount will tilt up enough to align with it. Thanks in advance. Edit: After playing with Stellarium I think I may of missed Polaris. Going to have to look again tomorrow. Puck42 fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Sep 18, 2010 |
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Sep 18, 2010 07:03
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(Oh god, this became another wall of text and I even tried to keep it down!) Polaris is only at a 90° angle if you are at the north pole. Its height over the horizon is equivalent to your latitude  Your scope is a 750mm focal length f/5, which means to get any sort of planetary range magnification you need some seriously short eyepieces; 750/25 gives you 30x magnification, to get 125x which is a reasonable medium power for seeing anything interesting on Jupiter, you'd need a 6mm. Here's a primer on how telescope optics work, and here's a pretty good eyepiece picking guide (feel free to disregard the sales spiel!) Since you asked, I would recommend something like (if you wear eyeglasses) a 6mm TeleVue Radian (125x) and a 12mm Type 4 Nagler (62.5x), or if not, 7mm (107x) or 5mm (150x) and 11mm (68x) or 13mm (58x) Type 6 Naglers. If you are considering buying a higher-power telescope later, though, you'd be better off getting double those focal lengths. If you are going to throw a Barlow into the mix, you want to follow a fibbonaci series of eyepiece focal lengths to get the maximum utility out of it (since a 6mm and 12mm will become a 3mm and 6mm, you are losing one possible intermediate step compared to for example 16 and 11 which would give you 16, 11, 8 and 5.5!) 150mm aperture is enough to see some fairly dim stuff visually; I would recommend spending the time and money getting some good eyepieces and learning to find your way around the sky first, and since you didn't get a go-to mount (not by any means a necessity, only a hedonistic convenience I would be sore to do without), learning some basic starhopping (there are good books, and guides online) is essential. The settings circles and a starmap will also get you there, if calibrated. Your telescope's parabolic primary mirror does the same job as a refracting glass lens would, optically, though the details are of course different, so there's no absolute need* to introduce any glass elements to reach focus. [Here I excised a couple of paragraphs worth of optical details that would confuse more than help] Your problem with reaching focus is most likely due to several things. Newtonians have a rather severe problem with lack of backfocus, it could well be that the distance from your sensor plane at the back of the camera body to the point where it attaches to the focuser is longer than the focuser's maximum inward travel from the point of focus, in which case you would need to either shorten the distance between the primary and secondary mirrors in one of several ways (don't try this unless you know exactly what to do and have access to a machine workshop), or try to find a shorter adaptor combination (tricky, it depends on how far off you are whether it's worth pursuing). Or you could - here comes that asterisk - introduce a Barlow (not an eyepiece, just the Barlow) which will due to its basic construction diverge the light cone, giving you more backfocus for the price of magnification. Though, without a coma corrector, wide field f/5 astrophotography through a Newtonian would be rather nasty anyway! However, a low quality Barlow can give you other problems in addition to quadrupling your exposure times and doubling the optical power (given a 2x - there are lower power ones too, but they aren't all that common.) However, at least until you can find Polaris unaided, please don't try astrophotography on anything more challenging than the Moon, or you will just burn out of the hobby early, which would be a shame. For AP, low power is by far the easiest kind to start out with, so the only reason to introduce a Barlow is if you can't reach focus in any other way, and then try to make it as low power one as you can find. You will need to balance that mount very carefully and be very careful with the polar alignments to be able to 'go deep' with it, since you don't have an autoguider. But again, rush ahead slowly. (Note: Even trying to capture the planets with that setup and your dSLR will get you nothing but an overexposed hazy blob and a lot of frustration. Trust me, I've been there. The physics of it are severly against you for single-frame captures. (A cheap modded webcam would be a far more appropriate tool for that task.))
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Sep 18, 2010 16:16
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Looks like Wolf on Air covered all those questions, but yeah your inability to reach focus with your DSLR will likely be due to not enough focus travel, you won't be able to rack the focuser in enough being the most likely culprit. I can't find anything specific regarding that scope, though we did have some conversation earlier in the thread regarding a similar issue. For my 250mm F4.8 reflector I ended up replacing the standard focuser with a nice low profile dual speed crayford focuser which makes a massive difference both visually and for photography. Another photo of the Iris nebula, this time on my William Optics ZS66SD, I took this the night before the previous picture. It's heavily cropped as even with the field flattener the amount of distortion I get is horrible, killing about 25% around the wider edge of the image.  Click here for the full 1200x884 image.
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Sep 18, 2010 20:16
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Thanks for the replies. I think my lack of being able to find Polaris was due to the light pollution and not being able to find the little dipper. I've had no problems in the past when out camping. Being in the middle of Arlington, VA isn't the best place for telescopes. I've found websites where people have used my scope for astrophotography and they all seemed to have replaced the focuser to achieve it. So I think I'll try going that route. In the mean time I'll play around with piggybacking on my scope since it already has a screw for it.
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Sep 18, 2010 21:11
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Just bought myself a ETX90 observatory edition after having one of these monsters for a few years: The ETX90 has a slightly smaller aperture but the plus for me is the tracking & autostar (plus the whole thing weighs about a quarter of the TAL-1 tripod alone so I won't need to dismantle the entire thing just to carry it outdoors!) Been playing around with it indoors getting the hang of the autostar & aligning it, unfortunately since then it's been solid cloud every night - bloody hobby. Has anyone got any experience using an ETX90 with a digital SLR? I've noticed there's a T-Ring for my camera but it's a Canon EOS350 (digital rebel) and weighs quite a bit so I'm a bit wary about having all that weight hanging out the back of the tube in case I strip the gears in the mount or something. Or should I just get a cheap webcam & use that for imaging instead?
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Sep 18, 2010 21:24
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I happened by an old observatory the other day. Saw some awesome clocks and some old telescopes I guess I was expecting something a bit more grand; the austerity of the British Royal Observatory really astounded me. For instance, Sir Edmond Halley had this telescope mounted facing south to measure the height of stars above the horizon. Was his most sophisticated telescope. Was simple, but effective... however, it was another 28 years before they could afford to have a 2nd such telescope to allow them to view north, too.  Did I mention how awesome the Harrison clocks were? 
grover fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Sep 23, 2010 |
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Sep 23, 2010 00:00
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I took my son for a day out there not so long ago, it's a great place to visit. Many of the telescopes were moved from there to herstmonceux after WW2 due the increasing light polution of London, it's also a good day out with an excellent, though slightly fake, castle.
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Sep 23, 2010 08:58
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I need to mount a 9x50 RACI finderscope. Has anyone ever drilled a hole in their telescope before? Advice?
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Sep 29, 2010 09:49
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INTJ Mastermind posted:I need to mount a 9x50 RACI finderscope. Has anyone ever drilled a hole in their telescope before? Advice? It's pretty simple. The tube of the telescope is only there for structural support and a little light dampening. You obviously want to prevent the metal filings from falling down onto the mirror, so keep the tube horizontal when drilling. It also helps to tape both sides with masking tape, and if you want to be really sure, hold a big rag under the other side of the hole. Make sure it's thick enough to keep your hand safe, though. This is all assuming you're drilling into a newtonian's tube, which if I remember correctly is the type of scope you have. Refractors and SCTs are totally different.
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Sep 29, 2010 18:13
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I'm going to be drilling into my tube this weekend to enlarge the focuser hole so I can add my new crayford 2" focuser. I'll post my experience after it's done. I'll probably end up taking the mirrors out though. I just hope my collimator eyepiece gets in by Friday so I can align the mirrors when I reinstall them. Is it common for eyepieces to always be out of stock? I bought a Hyperion eyepiece and everyone seemed to be out of stock on the drat things. It's going to take a month for it to come in (Hopefully).
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Sep 30, 2010 04:20
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Puck42 posted:I'm going to be drilling into my tube this weekend to enlarge the focuser hole so I can add my new crayford 2" focuser. I'd probably take my mirrors out too if I was cutting a hole for the focuser. Puck42 posted:Is it common for eyepieces to always be out of stock? I bought a Hyperion eyepiece and everyone seemed to be out of stock on the drat things. It's going to take a month for it to come in (Hopefully). Was it a Hyperion zoom? They've always had problems keeping them in stock, I'm not sure if it's popularity or manufacturing though.
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Sep 30, 2010 06:00
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Some Jupiter images from last night. I'm new to planetary imaging, it's a very different field to the long exposure deep space images I normally do and presents a new set of challenges. These are not very good, but they are a lot better than the ones I did on the weekend. The seeing is everything with this, magnification is so high that any atmospheric turbulence destroys video frames. These were taken on my 250mm F4.8 reflector with a philips SPC900NC webcam in a 4x Astro Engineering 'Imagemate' barlow. First image, a bit low in the sky, and the webcam settings were a bit off, but hey, Great Red Spot spotted.  Click here for the full 640x480 image. Not an hour later and I have the settings a bit better tuned, Jupiter is higer in the sky, but the spot has moved round now.  Click here for the full 640x480 image. Last one, showing more detail in the bands, but still a long way off what I'm hoping for.  Click here for the full 640x480 image.
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Sep 30, 2010 11:25
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So I just got my first telescope a few days ago. Of course it was raining so last night was my first chance to use it. After some CraigsList searching I ended up with a Zhumell 10" Dobsonian. The guy also included a few eyepieces (9mm, 13mm, 21mm), 2x barlow, a set of filters, laser collimator, telrad and a green laser pointer. I was able to get it all for $450. I live in quite possibly the worst city for Astronomy. New York City (Brooklyn to be exact). I started out with some Orion 10x50 UltraView binoculars and loved it so much that now I have this giant telescope in my room. I took it out last night and had a blast. This is my first telescope so it took me a bit to learn how to collimate and focus but once I got the hang of it I was enjoying my views of the Moon and Jupiter and some easier to spot deep sky objects (Orion Nebula and Andromeda). I spent some time trying to find other things but I really need to get out of the city. I live in a dark part of Brooklyn in comparison to most places here but it's still not ideal. All in all I'm really excited about it all. Looking forward to getting better. Any other NYC star goons here? I'd love to make it to a star party some time. Ohms fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Oct 18, 2010 |
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Oct 18, 2010 18:26
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Messed around with the new ETX90 on Sunday. Stuck the wifes casio point and shoot up to the eyepiece just to see what I could get. Turned out halfway decent. Going to capture Jupiter this weekend through it. My Nikon adapters might possibly be here by then, gonna see how well the little scope tracks. I have found a few websites out there where dudes are getting some decent DSO images out of the ETX lineup. If nothing else, this little scope is going to give me good experience while I keep saving for the Losmandy/80mm/Guidescope setup I want. Moon: 
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Oct 20, 2010 17:57
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It's been so long since I've seen the stars here in Boston... so much crap weather. Finally got out for about two hours last night before the clouds rolled in again. Got one picture at least, M103: an open cluster in Cassiopeia.
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Oct 20, 2010 20:08
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Finally have all my equipment setup and I was able to get a good look at Jupiter and a decent enough look at the moon, can't wait for it to wane some so I can get some good contrast on the surface. I got a few pics of Jupiter, but I need to get a motor to get anything decent.
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Oct 23, 2010 04:40
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I was really proud of myself having taken these photos by holding up my iPhone 4 to my eyepiece. Click here for the full 1530x2048 image. I tried flipping this to get it oriented correctly but I like it more upside down. Oh well.  Click here for the full 1530x2048 image.
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Oct 24, 2010 02:51
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Mucking about with my Webcam and Jupiter, I'm still learning the methods for webcam imaging, but I am at least making progress. This is a short gif of my latest efforts showing Io in transit. I'm not sure on the gif size rules, so this is optimized to keep it small and thus the image quality suffers a bit.  It's also my first ever gif, I'm very proud of myself! While I'm at it, have a greyscale moon image from the dorkroom long exposure thread :  Click here for the full 1920x1080 image.
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Oct 26, 2010 23:02
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Ohms posted:I was really proud of myself having taken these photos by holding up my iPhone 4 to my eyepiece. That first shot is excellent, I'm well impressed. Really good three dimensional feel to it and excellent detail for the equipment used.
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Oct 26, 2010 23:05
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Wow. That is awesome, Jekub. What was the time span of the animation?
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Oct 27, 2010 21:19
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About 14 minutes, Jupiter rotates very quickly, a day is just under 10 hours. For webcam imaging that means you can't capture video for more than around 2 minutes or the rotation will blur the detail.
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Oct 27, 2010 22:57
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Hey all, another goon that likes staring off into space here! I'm up in the cloudy PNW, Renton, WA, specifically. I also found out that my appartment building doesn't lock the door to the very flat roof that's higher than 90% of all the buildings and light sources around here.... I haven't yet gotten into astrophoto, although I've tried. It's been difficult though, as I'm trying to do more than my scope is really meant to do, and don't have the funding to do it proper  oh well, that's when you have the most fun, right?I've got an Orion XT8 dob which I started with, back when I was blissfully ignorant of that other mount called the "German Equatorial". I got a basically free non-goto CG-5 from some guy here in Seattle, and have tried to marry my OTA to it, with reasonable success. I'm at the very bloody edge of what that poor CG-5 can handle weight wise, however. I've also run into the same problems other newtonian users have when my photog buddy and I tried to do prime focus DSLR photography: The CMOS sensor is too far away from the prime focus point due to the massive focuser that comes stock on this thing. Word to the wise, if you are sure of your hands and have a bit of mechanical aptitude, it's not hard to calculate how far in you need to move your newtonian's mirror cell. Then all you have to do is replace the screws holding the mirror cell with longer machine screws and re-collimate. THEN all you have to do is buy a $300 motorized Moonlite low-profile focuser  That's the part I haven't done yet, because it gets cloudy fast here in the PNW, and I got distracted by other real-life crap.Anyways, enough of my ramblings, I have a question for you all: CGEM or Atlas EQ-G? From what I can tell, the CGEM might have slightly better internals, and definitely a better, more fully-featured hand controller (PEC, autoguiding, anystar align, etc, right?). However, the Atlas has EQMOD which means it's got tons of future expandability, past what the CGEM can do, but I would have to invest in a netbook to control it all. (I'm also not sure if the EQ-G has PEC built in to the controller, or if that's only available through EQMOD) I'm planning on sticking my 8" newtonian on it for now, but in the future will use the mount with a more astrophoto-friendly OTA and getting into imaging. Phew! Sorry for the wall of text, and thank you for the great photos Jekub and the rest of the imaging crew!
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Oct 28, 2010 08:18
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EQ6 SynScan has PEC, if possibly rudimentary. NexStar is a far better HC system, though. EQ6 vs CGEM is the most common topic on Cloudy Nights' Mounts subforum, so for more in-depth comparisons, try looking there. I bought an NEQ6 due to their well-established reputation of being 30 kg worth of cast aluminium Chinese certainly-not-precision engineering that tend to Just loving Work, whereas the CGEMs are theoretically nicer, but cost more, and have lots of random failure modes. I'm also personally sceptical of the DC-motor-and-encoders solution, steppers have that nice and reliable square wave torque curve, they also tend to not burn out the coils when accidentally stalled. Oh, and they're comparatively quiet, which lends itself a bit more to balcony observing Edit: update on my own activities if anybody cares: I got ahold of a second-hand Meade Deep Sky Imager II Pro, which is now sitting on my 60mm finder-guider awaiting a clear night. Which by the weather report is going to be at least 14 days. gently caress The Curse. Wolf on Air fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Oct 29, 2010 |
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Oct 29, 2010 00:44
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Hah yea, I've checked out the CN threads but I swear it's spread 50/50. I like to get some diversity in my internet arguments Thanks for the input! I like the idea of stepper motors, and the promise of EQMOD... I think I'm leaning towards the EQ-G, but drat Orion won't sell me just the head and controller. I've already got legs, damnit! For those of you trying to do DSLR imaging with a Newtonian tube but are having focusing troubles, here's a webpage that explains how to fix it. The author decides to cut his tube, but you can also use bolts to move the mirror inward, as I said above.
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Oct 29, 2010 11:53
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Wombot posted:For those of you trying to do DSLR imaging with a Newtonian tube but are having focusing troubles, here's a webpage that explains how to fix it. The author decides to cut his tube, but you can also use bolts to move the mirror inward, as I said above. Or replace your shoddy rack and pinion focuser with a nice crayford dual speed, low profile one instead, which has a great many benefits for both visual and imaging. I run a CGEM, it's nice being able to image up to 20 degrees past the meridian without having to flip. Also not having to replace the head with something more suitable to heavy loads is a plus, vixen dovetail is not suitable. Still, I only got it as I was offered a good deal, though I am now seriously considering trading in both my CGEM and Vixen Sphinx for an iOptron IEQ45 instead, depending on PEC scores.
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Oct 29, 2010 12:50
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Jekub posted:That first shot is excellent, I'm well impressed. Really good three dimensional feel to it and excellent detail for the equipment used. Thanks a lot!
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Oct 29, 2010 13:51
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The ETX90PE is turning out to be a great investment, especially since I snagged it for next to nothing. Jupiter was really clear and impressive through it with a 15mm and 2x barlow and the moon looks freaking awesome. I am leary about connecting my D60 up since the gears are plastic and the camera is pretty heavy. Can anyone recommend a cheap inexpensive webcam to start doing some astrophotography? The Phillips tUocam or whatever seems to be the most recommended, but I can't find any for sale. Here is a pic of Jupiter with a casio exilim poo poo rear end camera stuck up to the eyepiece. Really hard to keep things steady! 
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Oct 29, 2010 15:07
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Choicecut posted:Can anyone recommend a cheap inexpensive webcam to start doing some astrophotography? The Phillips tUocam or whatever seems to be the most recommended, but I can't find any for sale. You could look here from time to time for used Imaging Source cameras etc. Going to run you as much as the scope, or more. It's that, the overpriced Celestron NexImage and clones, or even more expensive choices, or DIY as mentioned earlier in the thread. The ToUcams show up from time to time, for an annoyingly high price, because they were end-of-life:d years ago. If you're going to pay that amount, something well adjusted to the job may be worth it. Apparently none of the TIS cameras actually can handle 60 fps without hideous artifacts, though. Jekub posted:it's nice being able to image up to 20 degrees past the meridian without having to flip. Also not having to replace the head with something more suitable to heavy loads is a plus, vixen dovetail is not suitable. The meridian thing is pretty much just a mechanical issue, I could image a full turn at plenty of declinations with my current setup. I guess what you meant is that the SynScan HC forces a flip, and NexStar doesn't until 20° beyond. EQMOD, like everything else about it, leaves this completely up to the user. For that matter, if you really wanted to be brutish about it, if using a ST4-style guider, you could just unplug the HC from the EQ6 altogether once the target is framed, the motors will keep tracking at the last set speed, and the motor controller board handles the autoguiding signals on its own. For the head thing, yes, the stock saddle is not optimal for a heavier scope, I intend to buy this beastly thing at some point. Available for pretty much every mount of note there is. I'm way more mad about the crappy altitude axis though, the mechanism is very poor for use above about 40°. I'm on the 57th parallel... the bolts are already starting to bend, at nowhere near a full load and the mount is a bit over three months old. I'm going to have to rebuild the mechanism to a greater or lesser degree at some point, and buy new bolts while I can still unscrew them. Still, it's built in a bruteforceish enough way that I have no real worries about doing that. The threads could really use some helicoil, too, though. Prone-to-bend steel bolts that need to handle strong lateral forces with something like a 10:1 lever counting bolt extension to threaded hole, bored through aluminium.  
Wolf on Air fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Oct 29, 2010 |
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Oct 29, 2010 16:04
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Wolf on Air posted:stuff Thanks for the info. I have been watching cloudy nights like a hawk, but nothing inexpensive has popped up. I really don't want to dip in my savings much as it will furthur delay my losmandy/apo setup I have my sights set on. Looking at the site with webcam conversions, it seems pretty easy and the webcams he modifies are relatively inexpensive. I may try something like this. Has anyone here ever mounted a dslr on an etx model telescope? I have come across sites where guys are doing it, then others say it stripped the gears or was too heavy to track. I can get a t-adapter for my nikon d60 for 20 bucks, but hate the thought of jacking up the telescope in the process.
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Oct 29, 2010 16:47
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Oh boy, I just took out my Bresser Pluto starter telescope and looked at Jupiter, I got all giddy since I managed to make out three of moons and the color of Jupiter, but my shaky hands ruined it a bit since I couldnt use the more magnifying eye pieces without losing focus or Jupiter from sight. But drat wasnt I glad to see something magnificent like that, and this was from our own yard with so much light that I cant make out the Milky Way. I was going to take the telescope to a darker location but then it got cloudy. Gonna see if tomorrow night is any better. Are there any other objects that I can look at with detail like that here in the northern hemisphere, Im thinking of trying to make out Andromeda galaxy, havent managed to find it with binoculars yet, but Ive always been on our yard. Also, I cant find any reviews of the Bresser telescope I have, do you guys have any opinions, the telescope I have is this: http://www.astroshop.eu/bresser-telescope-n-114-500-pluto-eq-sky/p,4130
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Oct 29, 2010 18:15
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