Astrophography

[Tora Ziyal]

Just to show that it can be done, here's a shot I took with my 2.1 megapixel camera with the camera looking through a telescope eyepiece.

Wow, that's pretty sweet.

Isn't it! Wow!

 

[Roshi]

You might want to invest in an eyepiece adapter for your camera. They're made for this purpose. They take the place of the lense and with the adapter, they screw right onto eyepiece. In this way, you're getting exactly what the camera is seeing as if it were your eye, with the full resolution of what the camera is able to capture. They're great for high-powered views of planetary objects, galaxies and nebulae. What kind of camera are you using?

A Lumix FZ-28 by Panasonic. It's a real affordable "bridge" camera and I don't know if there are eyepiece adapters...

Three years ago I was in Paris for AC/DC's concert and I befriended a guy who took pictures during the concert. We were 100 yards from Angus Young and here's a pic he took with the FZ-18. I had never been able to take pics of that quality level up until recently. I have close to zero knowledge concerning photography...

 

[Owain Taggart]

Oh, I see. That seems like a fairly capable camera, so you should be able to get some good shots out of it. How did you take your first shot? It's fairly good. I even think you'd be able to get even more detail out of the moon with the right method.

My Dad had made me my own eyepiece adapter for the 2.1, more or less. Made a contraption to hold the camera up to the eyepiece to keep it steady. It was fairly capable if the moon shot is any indication.

Did a little digging around. You might find this useful:

http://www.astronomyforum.net/astronomy-digital-cameras-forum/91638-astrophotography-lumix-fz28.html

http://www.astronexus.com/node/147

http://www.astronexus.com/node/146

So, apparently it is possible to get an adapter for it. Also, what kind of scope do you have?

 

[Sky]

Gorgeous stuff. Thanks so much for sharing. I want to try that now too.

 

[Roshi]

Oh, I see. That seems like a fairly capable camera, so you should be able to get some good shots out of it. How did you take your first shot? It's fairly good. I even think you'd be able to get even more detail out of the moon with the right method.

I kept hearing praises about RAW format (RW2 actually) so I set my camera on that format, chose the lowest exposition possible on that device (100 ISO), something called Spot Metering (this setting [.], not that one [(.)] ), F4.0, 1/125 exposure time.
Unfortunately I cannot edit RW2 files properly so I had to crop the right section and screencap the result...

Now I have chosen the RAW/JPEG setting, hoping I could use Gimp when I'll edit my next full moon pics.

Did a little digging around. You might find this useful:

http://www.astronomyforum.net/astronomy-digital-cameras-forum/91638-astrophotography-lumix-fz28.html

http://www.astronexus.com/node/147

http://www.astronexus.com/node/146

Thanks! I shall have a look!

Also, what kind of scope do you have?

It's a Meade ETX-70AT, but I think I broke it when I moved last November...

 

[Owain Taggart]

I kept hearing praises about RAW format (RW2 actually) so I set my camera on that format, chose the lowest exposition possible on that device (100 ISO), something called Spot Metering (this setting [.], not that one [(.)] ), F4.0, 1/125 exposure time.
Unfortunately I cannot edit RW2 files properly so I had to crop the right section and screencap the result...

Looks like you're doing the right thing, but if the camera has raw capabilities, it should have come with software to let you edit that properly. I'm not familiar with the Panasonic software, but with the Canon downloader, it has limited editing capabilities right in there, so it's likely you have similar software.