Roland,
No I do not have all the equipment I need for photography. I do not
have an off-axis guider or a rectical ep. I simply use a tele-
extender and turn the drive on and let it go. The results are not
too bad (the m42 picture I uploaded was scanned from a print, like
the others, so it has lost a lot of detail). I never spend more then
1 min. polar aligning so my shots are only good for a few minites. I
have let them go for as long as 5 min but the stars usually end up as
jagged lines ( due to vibrations and drive errors). It is obvious in
these shots that there is a lot more detail (M42 is about twice the
size of a 3 min shot) but trailing is too bad to be "nice to look
at". Anyway I use a Nikkormat FT2 (nikon) fully manual camera which
has a fine matte focusing sceen installed. (This is great for
focusing stars but a lot harder to focus on the moon) and the
standard attaching stuff (tele-extender and t-ring). I have also
tried some piggy back work with a 50mm and I will be trying again
soon with a used 135mm I bought last year.
In short, I am a visual observer who was given a great camera for
free just because the light meter didn't work, and have been
experimenting a little here and there. My first love will always be
on the visual side, but the photography stuff I find interesting and
a challenge. I generally use the money I have saved for astronomy on
visual stuff before I would buy photo stuff. But, I am still on the
look out for a used longer focal length lens (ie 300mm) to start a
little more deep sky piggy back work. If I ever find one which is a
good deal I'm sure I would buy a guiding ep very shortly there
after. I'm not sure I have the patience to use a cheap off- axis
guider as finding a suitable guide star sounds like it would be very
frustrating, and I am not willing to spend 200 or 300 bucks on a good
guider with adjustable prism and all. So, I probably won't be doing
much prime focus stuff.
clear skies,
matt
--- In OAFs@y..., r.prevost@h... wrote:
--- In OAFs@y..., "Matt Weeks" <mweeks@i...> wrote:
The file was under your folder, I'll move it back to the main
list
now.
Thanks Matt,
What you did makes perfect sense - I never thought of that. Looked
at
your photos. The one I liked best was the 18mm afocal moon photo
you
took. What's the equipment used. Your M42 was taken without
tracking
it says. Have you got the equipment required to take a tracked
photo?
If you ever want to do an astrophoto session and need to borrow
some
equipment of mine, let me know. Thanks for the downloads.
Later,
Rol ( Photonman )
