So how do you take pictures with a telescope? Here is a quick tutorial based on taking a picture recently.
1. I have a Meade LXD 75 which is a 6inch reflector telescope. For normal viewing light is captured in the mirror and reflected back to the eye piece. You need to focus the image using the two large silver dials on the side which moves the eyepiece until the image is focused. The first step is to remove the eye piece the the barrel its attached to as follows.
Remove the eyepiece and the Barrel
2. There are two pieces to be added to the telescope. A T-Ring and a T-Adapter which I’ve shown in the next image. The T-Ring came with the telescope which is the first thing to screw onto the eyepiece holder. The next step is to attach the T-Adapter which is the specific piece that you attach to the camera. I have a Nikon D50 which is a digital SLR.
Attach the T-Ring and T-Adapter
3. Next you have to remove the lens from the camera as you cannot use it to take pictures. The telescope will do our focusing. Becuase this is an SLR (single lens reflex) you have to look through the cameras eyepiece which will then show you what is what the camera will take.
- Remove the Lens from the Camera
4. Next attach the camera to the T-Adapter as if it was a lens. It should fully click into place. You are now ready to start taking pictures.
Attach camera to T-Ring
5. Now you point the telescope using the site at the side of the telescope. In this case we are pointing at the Moon which should be easy to find! Once you can see it through the viewfinder of the camera you need to adjust the focus by using the two silver knobs to raise or lower the camera to bring the image into focus. When you have the image appearing focused set the camera to Manual operation and set a timed exposure (1/1000 sec for full moon, or in the example below it was 1/125 sec). I used ISO set to 200. The real trouble was with the focusing.
6. Given that the viewfinder is so small the image may appear focused, so when you take a picture (I use a remote, but the timer is also fine given the short exposure time) you should check the image immediately to potentially change your exposure time. I checked the picture by zooming into it and found it depressingly blurry. So I decided to do the following. Change the focus so that you find a range where the image through the viewfinder goes from out of focus, to in focus, to out of focus again. The go back to the beginning and take a picture while out of focus, turn the Silver dials again to focus slightly more and take another picture. Repeat the process until the image in the viewfinder goes from out of focus, to in focus to out of focus again. I finally took the following image. It was worth the effort.
Recent image of the Moon
If you are taking pictures, I hope that helps!
Post Published: 10 November 2009
Author: paul
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