Moon , Up Close & Personal

[Celestron]

Had alot of high clouds that kept covering the moon last night and i was hand holding my wifes Canon A720 IS PowerShot . Nice camera for the most part , 8.1mp . Anyway using my Celestron 8" SCT i took a few shots throught the Eye-Piece and the high clouds as i said interfered alot but some turned out half way . Not easy shooting through a EP handhelt . Cs'&Cs' welcome .

[Red Dog]

Amazing pics Celestron, looks so close you could almost touch it. Looks like a teenager with bad acne.

[Nighthound]

Wow Ron, great! I had to wait until I got home to take a look because my monitor at work is dark(CRT). Looks much better here but could use a tad of curves adjustment to brighten some. Excellent detail. You've got that SCT well collimated. Seeing must have been pretty good too huh?

I miss those Apollo fly over views with my LX200 at high mag. A nice slow slew along the surface is so cool. I use to love to see people's reaction seeing that for the first time.

[Celestron]

Thanks for the comments Red Dog & Steve !

Steve i try to keep that SCT collimated as well as i can . I finally installed BobsKnobs a while back and it sure makes things easier ! Iwas shooting the moon inbetween high thin clouds and they moved acrossed before i could focus a good shot . Heres' a couple examples when the clouds moved across before i could focus and shoot :( .

[Bernoulli]

Hey Ron - seems like I'm just piling on to your threads today. But you have such a good image in that first shot.

I've messed around over the years with just holding the cheap P&S up against the eyepiece, and you can actually get some amazing results. Zoom the lens all the way, to the highest magnification, and hold it about 1/4 inch from the eyepiece. Let autofocus and autoexposure do their thing and snap away. The hardest part is getting aligned so that you actually have a bright image in the camera's field of view. If the moon takes up the entire frame, the camera's auto settings will usually do OK on focus and exposure. Out of 10 shots you'll get 2 keepers with the other 8 being poor camera-to-eyepiece alignment.

Orion telescope makes a holder bracket for just this purpose, I have one but haven't spent much time with it, I usually just hold the camera by hand:

http://www.telescope.com/control/product/~category_id=photo_accessories/~pcategory=astro-imaging/~product_id=05228

Here's a shot I took on Jan 2 (I think) of the Apollo 11 landing site, marked with a white cross. The two identical craters to the upper right of the landing site, Ritter and Sabine, are 30 km across (made simultaneously by the impact of a double asteroid, it's thought). If you go left and slightly down, the first tiny dark spot is the crater Armstrong, at 4.6 km it is only slightly more than 2 arc seconds across. So you can get excellent resolution this way.

At these magnifications, image stacking works wonders but I haven't done any of that yet.

Some of you that have telescopes might try it. I even take pictures of deer in my front yard this way through binoculars on a tripod. For this moon shot I used a 6 inch cassegrain and a low power eyepiece, probably 25 mm to give 72X magnification.

[Celestron]

Thanks Bernoulli for the comments ! Yes i know of the Steady Pick and have always wanted to try one but just haven't got one yet . Whats the weight amount capable for this ?

[Bernoulli]

They say it'll hold an SLR but I wouldn't trust it. But it's solid with a P&S. The thing you have to be real careful of with it is ramming the lens into the eyepiece when it zooms.

I never had much luck getting a DSLR to provide a good view down the eyepiece. How did you do it?

[Celestron]

I used my wifes A720 IS PS . It's 8.1mp . I doubt very seriously i would let my 300D loose while using this attachment . I use a T-Ring and T-Adapter for PF and a Tele-Extender for planet and close up moon shots when using my Canon 300D . I have images on my equip page on my website . These two attachments are sturdy without problems .

[OUTLAW PHOTO II]

Excellent image Celestron, In reading the post here, I will add that I have used a spotting scope with "T" ring and adapter to get the same results but, I can't seem to get rid of that pesky blue ring around the the outer edges. If anyone has any suggestions I would love to try them.

[OUTLAW PHOTO II]

By the way, on my monitor it looks like you can reach out and touch the moon, Fantastic !

[Adrena1in]

Pictures like this really make me think about investing in a high-mag SCT or something similar. Very nice.

[Celestron]

Excellent image Celestron, In reading the post here, I will add that I have used a spotting scope with "T" ring and adapter to get the same results but, I can't seem to get rid of that pesky blue ring around the the outer edges. If anyone has any suggestions I would love to try them.

Thanks for the comments Outlaw ! That pescky blue ring around the moon you get is called Chromatic Abberation . Best way to get rid is to change your image to grayscale in PS if you have it .

[OUTLAW PHOTO II]

Thanks for the comments Outlaw ! That pescky blue ring around the moon you get is called Chromatic Abberation . Best way to get rid is to change your image to grayscale in PS if you have it .

Thanks Celestron , i'll try that.

[ssracer]

I did this with a point and shoot and binoculars at the first NASCAR race I attended several years ago...lol

Very nice shots, especially considering your conditions!

[Celestron]

Thanks ssracer !

[MacDogg]

I use the SteadyPix with my scope and camera. One thing you will learn really fast is to make sure the camera is far enough away from the eye piece or your lens will sometimes bump into the eye piece when it auto focuses. :(