First time I pointed my camera at Saturn

Finally got a break in the weather, so I busted out my new 7mm Celestron X-Cel LX eyepiece only to find that the glass had been shattered in shipping. Trying to find some way to get over the frustration, I grabbed my 2x barlow with a t-mount and decided to try it out for the first time.

This image is nothing spectacular, but you can tell it's Saturn. I will definitely need to work on how to focus on things while using my camera and shooting through my telescope via prime focus. But I'm happy I got something out of tonight.

very nice capture

stunning shot, i like it

Very good for your first try at it!

Thanks for the feedback. I just realized the cropped image doesn't show the exposure settings in its properties, so just FYI, it was 1/8 second and I had my camera at ISO 3200 (which is the extended ISO on the 40D). F-stop and focal length in my sig for the telescope. This image is collecting likes on FB

Great shot!

Well done...

you can add some POTN 'likes' with that great pic too

Nice capture... If u are into planets, u might wanna give registax a try. I had great results with it!

Very nice for a first image of saturn ! What scope did you use ?

Gonna have to dig in and give registax a look. I took some shots of Saturn again last night but realized if I want to get something significantly better I'm going to have to stack. I also need to set up the motor and alignment on my scope to have it track rather than freehanding it. Basically I just pulled the decade old telescope out of my parents' garage in February and starting getting back together. I will likely be moving from the city to a more rural location this Summer, so just trying get things greased so to speak.

The Saturn image was shot using the LXD55 6" Schmidt-Newtonian in my sig with my 40D using a 2x barlow T-mount. The finder scope isn't even aligned properly yet so finding Saturn in my LCD liveview proves to be something of a trick, and I found focusing to be a bit difficult as well. Last night I aimed at the Moon, focused, then turned to Saturn. That worked pretty well, but it also made me shoot the moon as 800 ISO because I wasn't thinking enough. Though I got a touch better focus on Saturn, the image wasn't drastically better so I didn't bother posting it.

Focus on a bright star not the moon . Moon is so close that when you turn to saturn it will be off focus . When i focus on saturn i pay attention the the dark ring . It only shows up properly when focus is near right on .

I can't even see stars in my LCD live view. Oh, well, maybe if I point at Arcturus or Vega or something like that. Something to try next visit as I return to the city tomorrow and we may not have clear skies tonight.

I appreciate all the guidance and feedback!

Yeah any bright star will work . Aim at the star, center with a 2xbarlow and a crosshair EP if you have one and do a fine focus then attach your camera and refocus if needed after you can see it in the Viewer than use liveview . If your using liveview first then yes i can see why you have a hard time finding it .