Astrophotography
Astrophotography can be a rewarding pastime for some beginner astronomers. Conventional 35mm cameras, Schmidt cameras, and CCD or Digital cameras can be used to take your spectacular pictures.
The right pieces are needed to make this a success. You will need a shutter cable for the 35mm, an equatorial telescope mount to help with tracking your object for up to an hour sometimes. A “T” mount to help align the camera with the eyepiece holder, and a guider eyepiece to help keep your object in the center of your frame.
There are many ways to pursue this hobby. One is by using a camera mounted to the side of the telescope. Another is have the camera on the back of the telescope, using the scope as a guide. The last is to use a camera that is attached to a movable mount on a tripod. If you use these, please make sure your camera is steady and firmly attached with no vibrations or shaking.
If you are just starting out, take your digital camera and select some constellations to snap. To set your digital camera up, check your aperture and sensitivity settings. Also check your shutter speed. All of these should be set to where more light can be focused especially when taking pictures at night.
Focusing means doing the manual focus on the camera or digging through the many menus until you find the right one and set it to what you want. Then try to shoot something far away to see if the setting you programmed works.
White balancing is usually by default. At night, the default setting will the sky to a brown-reddish color. If you are going to incorporate long exposures of the night sky, try setting the balance to Tungsten.
After you take several pictures, transfer them from the camera onto the computer. Sometimes they come up grainy, try reducing the size down by increments and you should soon have a clear picture.
Telescopes
Factors To Consider When Purchasing A Telescope
Viewing The Night Sky With A Telescope
Telescopes
... telescope mount has two variations. The Ball and Socket which has a ball shaped end that can move freely. The second type is called a Rocker Box. This is usually made of plywood and has a low center of gravity. It has a horizontal circular base and Teflon ball bearings for the altitude axis. These are ...
... Hadley developed a telescope that used parabolic mirrors in 1722. These types of telescopes are great for viewing comets, nebulae, star clusters, and other galaxies. They offer a wider field of view than refracting telescopes do. These have short focal ratios and lower magnification. They are relatively ...
... These scopes employ mirrors or certain types of lenses to gather light and focus it. A good example would be a pair of binoculars. X-ray or Gamma-Ray telescopes have rays that go through many glasses and metals. The mirrors involved in these scopes are usually parabolic in shape. Gamma-ray scopes don't ...
... universe. Some of the objects you may see are the moon, planets, and the sun. With a little practice, you may be able to spot some comets, stars, nebulae, and maybe even other galaxies. The Moon is the best object to view at first because of its prominence and brightness in the night sky. You can follow ...
... This original scope had both concave and convex lenses so that the image would not be inverted. After the Netherlands started producing them, they were rapidly found all over Europe. In 1609, Galileo was visiting Venice and claims to have solved the problems with the telescope by using a convex lens in ...