Telescopes and astronomy

Lenny, I was wondering if you ever took pictures with your telescope, and if so, how?

Not with mine, no.

I've just had a quick lookee on Google, on the general consensus is that you'd need a Digital SLR, and an afocal coupling, I think it's called, to attach it to the eyepiece, effectively using the telescope as a lense. If you want to go for exposures of longer than a few seconds, you'll also need an electric motor which will slowly turn the telescope to follow the object around the sky.

Alternatively, you can use a method called "piggybacking", in which you secure the camera to the telescope with a mount, start the motor running, and walk away - the camera takes a picture through its own lense, rather than through the telescope.

Here are two articles, from the same site as before. The first is piggybacking, the second is using the telescope as a lense.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/howto...tml?page=2&c=y

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/howto...tml?page=2&c=y

And if you want further reading, here's a list of astrophotography articles from the same site:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/howto/astrophotography

I assume you did get a telescope, then?

Thanks.

And yea, I did get a telescope. http://www.celestron.com/c2/product....=62&ProdID=428 My dad got it for 150 somewhere.

Thanks. And yea, I did get a telescope. http://www.celestron.com/c2/product....=62&ProdID=428 My dad got it for 150 somewhere.

That's a very nice peice of machinery, my uncle has one almost identicla to that, have fun MJ!

I agree with D3V - a great piece of kit.

Have you been able to do much with it so far?

Actually I haven't even seen it yet. It arrived in Houston day-before yesterday, and I've been in College Station. I'm going home on the 10th, though, and I'm looking forward to it.

Diggeth!

Just wondering how it's all going - have you been able to use it, etc?

Yea, I got a chance to use it. It was pretty sweet. I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I am not very good with locating things quite yet, but I'm getting better every time I go home. I went home this weekend, but unfortunately it was too cloudy to see anything. :-\

The finder scope helps!