Starship Asterisk*

Ive been interested in astronomy for a long time, but only in the last 2 years have I aquired a reasonable scope. Its a 5" Schmit mazuka, and its on an equitorial mount. I have a motor on it, but the connections have been damaged. I dont know if they are irreprable or if I can even use the motor the way it is temporarily. The connections are similar to landline phone sockets, and the plastic around them has been cracked. This week I was given 2 minolta cameras. 1 is a minolta dynax40 automatic slr which needs rapairs because it doesnt focus properly. I may be able to replace it with the same model of a second hand camera for the same price it would cost me to repair the one I have. Im not sure yet though. The other camera is a manual Minolta X700. The last time I did astrophotography was probably 20 years ago, and I didnt have a scope then. Just an old slr, and a 200mm zoom lens. Now I have the basics to start up again, but Im not sure what I can do. Given that I dont yet have an adapter for the scope or the working cam. I do have a mount however that is designed to point a camera at the actual eyepiece. It wont take the camera i have though with any lenses fitted to the actual camera.

So, my question is, is there likely to be ANY way that I CAN use the equipment Ive already mentioned above effectively? Can I say, point the camera at the diagonal flat, and leave out an eyepiece? Or can I use the camera without the lens attached, and find a focal point effectively?

Eagerly awaiting.....

I don't have a lot of advice but attempting to use an SLR without the lens sounds like a bad idea. I don't see how it could even function and you could damage the CCD.

Its a non digital SLR camera. Yeah, very old!!

Haha, I suck, for some reason I automatically apply a D to SLR since film SLRs are so uncommon now. Good job, geck... I have used a regular SLR many times but I was a kid and all I knew how to do was point and click. Shame! Oh well, hopefully someone else knows more than I do. This section of the forum is new so we might not have many astrophotographers here yet. Tell your friends to come.

I will! IF I can find any with the same interests!

dreamchaser wrote:So, my question is, is there likely to be ANY way that I CAN use the equipment Ive already mentioned above effectively? Can I say, point the camera at the diagonal flat, and leave out an eyepiece? Or can I use the camera without the lens attached, and find a focal point effectively?

The telescope may be suitable for astroimaging. You will need to get at least the polar motor on the mount operational, and how effective the resulting setup will be depends on how sturdy that mount is.

Honestly, I'd advise against using either camera. Film is dead for astrophotography. It is very insensitive compared with digital cameras, and most of the films that worked well are no longer available. Film requires long, carefully guided exposures, and you have no feedback how things worked until it's processed.

I'd suggest that you get a used Canon DSLR, such as a 300D or 350D. These can be had very inexpensively, and are excellent astroimaging DSLRs. You don't need or want any lenses, so don't worry about that. All you need is the correct T-adapter to convert between the camera's bayonet mount and a 1.25" eyepiece barrel. The camera is set up with its sensor at the telescope's focal plane, so you don't need any eyepieces, either.

To get fair astroimages, you should plan on exposures no shorter than two minutes. You'll take many and stack them together to improve your image quality. Many mounts can track accurately for two minutes, but many inexpensive ones will have problems even with that length exposure.

Chris, do you know how to keep the shutter open for two minutes automatically? Or is bulb mode with a stop watch the way? I have a 350D I once thought about hacking but ehhh I think I'd rather keep a working camera.

geckzilla wrote:Chris, do you know how to keep the shutter open for two minutes automatically? Or is bulb mode with a stop watch the way? I have a 350D I once thought about hacking but ehhh I think I'd rather keep a working camera.

Bulb mode with a shutter release lets you leave the shutter open as long as you want. With a 350D you'll start getting significant dark current buildup by 5 minutes, and 10 minutes is probably as long as you could reasonably go without it chewing up too much dynamic range. Canon makes a nice programmable shutter release that lets you set arbitrary exposure lengths and sequences. If you don't use bulb, the max exposure is 30 seconds, which is really too short for astroimages because the readout noise dominates.

Is it one of these? I was searching for wireless remotes but was having a really hard time figuring it out without being able to pick it up and look at it. And then I got caught up on wanting the remote to be programmable and gave up. None of them looked quite like what I wanted. Maybe B&H doesn't sell what you're talking about, which would surprise me. I'm probably looking in the wrong place.

geckzilla wrote:Is it one of these? I was searching for wireless remotes but was having a really hard time figuring it out without being able to pick it up and look at it. And then I got caught up on wanting the remote to be programmable and gave up. None of them looked quite like what I wanted. Maybe B&H doesn't sell what you're talking about, which would surprise me. I'm probably looking in the wrong place.

It's on that page. I use the TC-80N3, which is programmable. The RS-80N3 and RS-60E3 are simple remote releases, where you have to hold the button. The first two use different plugs than the 300D and 350D, but are pretty trivially adapted with a couple of dollars worth of stuff from Radio Shack.

I really like the TC-80N3, because I can set up an entire sequence of images and then leave the camera to itself, while I'm inside where it's warm!

Wow, thanks, that's really helpful. Ok ok, just one more tiny question and apologies to dreamchaser for slightly derailing his thread, but how far does the programming go? For instance, can you tell it to take a photo every day at 2PM or some equivalent like set the interval to 24h? It looks like it might be annoying to do anything overly complicated with the little screen. The scripting side of me wants to totally geek out and be able to put in all sorts of conditionals but that is probably asking too much.

Edit: Nevermind, I can has readings:

The Canon TC-80N3 is a remote switch with an 80cm/2.6ft. cord and a self-timer, interval timer, long-exposure timer, and exposure-count setting feature. The timer can be set anywhere from 1 sec. to 99 hrs., 59 min., 59 sec. A dial enables you to easily enter the numeric settings with a single thumb. The LCD panel can also be illuminated. And the rear of the Controller has a hole to keep the EOS-3's remote control socket cap.

Also, I tried looking for adapters for N3 to ... well, anything. Couldn't find any easily. Plenty of articles on splicing on a new one, though...

May I suggest that you try renting imaging time from one of the online telescope imaging systems like Lightbuckets (http://www.lightbuckets.com) or Global Rent a Scope (http://www.global-rent-a-scope.com). That way you can try Astrophotography before you spend lots of money on equipment. One of the largest learning curves is image processing but there are systems you can rent online that will allow you to produce a full color image fairly easly with nice results. If you end up liking astrophotography you can pursue it with a better understanding on what you are getting into.

Kindest Regards,

Ken Crawford
http://www.imagingdeepsky.com

No problem at ALL Geck!! its all good for me. I honestly dont know when I will be able to get even a reasonable D camera. But I will certainly have a look around. A lot of the more technical stuff went over me head to be honest. But sure whenever I can get a good digital camera, I will.....