Has Anyone Done Any Photography

[Kan Win]

Anyone did any Photography using a telescope?

I have a small telescope and 2 Tri-Pods, plus DSLR camera.

Shooting Wild Life in Kan as I Kan not get close enough to take these photos as it is so quite there.

Any hints and or tips on this one ?

Happy Shooting,

Yours truly,

Kan Win

[Khutan]

I am assuming you want to shoot stars or the moon at night.

I have been unsucessful on a number of tries and I resorted to my handy f4.5 500mm lens and a 1000mm (f8) lens using a Canon A1.

The moon was ok, but planets and stars was not possible, because the shutter had to be open too long. The problem being that the earth is moving and if you need a 1 or 2 hour exposure then the subject may have moved 15 - 30 degrees.

What the "Astronomical" photographers use is like a tracking motor and after making a few calculations, you set the tracker to a certain distance along the telescope.

I have seen these made with old clock movenents etc, and as long as there is a smooth movement, then it will work well.

Daytime photography with a telescope I think you are better with a Mirror Telephoto lens. You can get 1200 - 1500 mm lenses for a cheap price, and the f rating is reasonable. The big problem being the camera shake. Camera shake comes from pressing the shutter release and also wind on the camera / lens / tripod.

Two simple things I learnt is to eliminate Camera shake 1. Shutter Release - use the self timer on the camera, simple, but it gets rid of that shake from pressing the release. 2. Wind shake - I used a bag of sand I tied to the bottom of the tripod, that seemed to eliminate Camera shake, until you got high wind.

Good luck, Tele-photography is such great fun

[Chang_paarp]

With telescope and SLR (digital or film) you are restricted by your film and telesope.

If you want to photograph the moon remember it uses the same exposure rules as daylight ie f16@1/film speed. ie 400 iso film f16@1/400 sec (1/500 is close enough). This is because it is lit by the same light source as the earth, the extra 1/2 million km is not significant after 92 million.

If you want to shoot the stars, you need a clear moonless night, preferably away from any town, city or major light source. Point the telescope at the pole (N for northern hemisphere, south for Southern hemisphere) put the camera on and leave the shutter open on 'B' for anything from 40 minutes to 4 hours. You will get a set of star trails rotating around the pole if your tripod is study enough.

Hanging sand bags off the centre pole of the telescope helps to make it more steady. If you do not want to lug sand bags to the boondocks, get a couple of shopping bags and fill them with anything available and use them. Also much easier to carry home.

To get images of remote stars is a whole different kettle of fish. I had a customer who would carry a tracking telescope to the bush, set up and take 1 or 2 exposures in a night, winter here because that is when the nights were clearest, pack up and come home 150km, only to find he did not set the scope up right and it did not track correctly, so he got a trail instead of a dot for alpha centori or the hourse head nebula. He then had to wait another month because there was too much moon light.