Low Tech Pleiades (M45)

[Philip Pugh]

Most deep sky photography is done using expensive CCDs and telescopes. This may put the financially challanged off but it is possible to do some objects with a compact digital camera and telescope costing about the same. Last night I snapped the Pleiades and it's the first object on this page:

http://philippugh.fortunecity.com/Gallery_DeepSky.html

Last night's M42 wasn't quite so hot but I'm going to keep trying. Doube stars and open clusters are the best types of objects to try this technique on. To cut a long story short, I use an 80mm refractor with F/2.5 and afocal projection.

[firemouth]

Are you not tracking with a motorized mount?

[Philip Pugh]

I experimented a bit last night. M31 appeared like a faint smudge but I saw something in M42. Melotte 20 was a disappointment but I've done better before.



Really, should M42 be possible at all with such a prmitive set-up?



Check Latest Observations for details.

[Philip Pugh]

Are you not tracking with a motorized mount?

Not at all. I don't have a suitable mount but I can dream. I use afocal projection and a massive 6x magnification. A bit of trailing is visible but it's not too bad. I'll never get the same results people get with $000s worth of equipment but I still think there's a lot that can be done with compact digital cameras.

[Tony]

I've done that low tech too when I started. I used a Meade 114mm reflector mounted on a hand adjusted mount that sort of could be roughly polar aligned.... I found using the widest angle eyepiece and low magnificaiton worked better than high magnificaitons. I used a Canon Powershot G-1 camera that I put on 2x digital zoom and held the lens right on the eyeipece lens. I got a 35mm eyepiece so it had a pretty good sized opening to which I could match my camera... then used asa 1600 to get most bang for the buck. It was fun. Moon was easy as you could go way back on the asa rating, and get images.

Before DIS's hit the street I moved up to an 8" Alt Atz fork mounted scope that would track... used the same technique and eventually bought a "steady pix" bracket from Orion so I could position the camera and eyepiece.

once you get an image of say M-31 iun Orion, you can stretch it in photoshop to enhance what you've recorded.

keep at it.

[Philip Pugh]

Managed some useful stuff tonight but didn't manage to capture M35, as hoped: http://philippugh.fortunecity.com/Latest_Observations.html



Got a half decent shot of the Pleiades, though.