The Moon

**Conkers** · 18th March 2005

having a play with my telescope..... this is my 1st attempt @ astrophotography.....

**Shambles** · 18th March 2005

Welcome monsieur hubble

Only j/k nice pic dude

**4me2** · 19th March 2005

Nice pic.

Karma awarded.

**slartibartfast** · 20th March 2005

Good first attempt. :thumbs

What equipment are you using ?

**Loony Toon** · 20th March 2005

very nice picture

**Conkers** · 20th March 2005

Thanks All..

Originally Posted by slartibartfast

What equipment are you using ?

It's a little ETX-70 with my 300D attatched to the T-Mount on the back.

**slartibartfast** · 20th March 2005

Nice.

Highlights are slightly blown at the top, have you tried doing a RAW conversion to get some detail back in there and layering the 2 in PS ?

How did you get on with focusing, I always find it difficult, never quite sure whether it's sharp or not. :|

**Conkers** · 21st March 2005

yeah... see what you mean about the highlights.. will give that a go.

Focusing was a bit hit & miss, got quite a few blurred shots !

Most difficult for me though was the height of the moon at the moment, when the scope has my 300D on the back it can only point up so far before the camera blocks the travel as it can't pass through the forks..... ended up shortening one of the tripod legs to point the thing up far enough

**Conkers** · 22nd March 2005

@slarti..... am i right in thinking you've got an LX ????

**slartibartfast** · 22nd March 2005

LX90, yeah.

**Conkers** · 22nd March 2005

That's a nice piece of kit... would love to see some of your planet pics...

**Tommy J** · 22nd March 2005

That's excellent but we all know it's not real!:nono

The real moon is made of cheese.

**slartibartfast** · 22nd March 2005

Originally Posted by pingobingo

would love to see some of your planet pics...

The trouble with the planets is they're so dim the only way to really get a decent shot is with a webcam and stacking 100's of images. The only one I've done so far is Mars and it was less than impressive.

I must have spent over an hour capturing images with a webcam then another hour trying to process a decent image on the computer to come up with that shot of Mars. Compare that with less than a second to capture this Moon shot and about 10 minutes on the computer processing it, and you'll see why I haven't bothered that much with the planets.

**Conkers** · 22nd March 2005

Mate... as usual that's quality !!
See what you mean though with the Mars piccy..... the moon offers instant gratification !!

What's a Lumicon OAG... BTW ?

**slartibartfast** · 22nd March 2005

Off Axis Guider. It lets you connect your camera to the scope yet still connect an eyepiece as well. It's also a focal reducer taking the LX90 from f10 to f6.3, which is why I used it, no need to guide at 1/350th of a second.

**Conkers** · 22nd March 2005

thanks for that... how long have you been snapping ??

You've a mighty impressive arsenal of kit, as well as heaps of talent !!

**slartibartfast** · 23rd March 2005

Thanks.

I've been snapping on and off for quite a while, my first SLR was an old Zenit given to me by my brother about 20 odd years ago, but it's only in the last few years I've really started to take more of an interest. Probably because there are no processing costs involved in digital so you can experiment a lot more and just bin the rubbish. It's taken me about 5 or 6 years to put together the gear I have now, although being a gadget freak I'm always on the lookout for what I can spend my money on.