Quick introduction and question..

mjsmyth

Hi,

I've been a member of boards now for quite a while, but never really popped in here before.

Late last year I did a 12 week astronomy course and found it very interesting. No sniggering, but I bought the Lidl telescope when it was on sale and use it from time to time.

Last night I took it out and was doing a bit of moon watching (is it just me or can you just look at it for hours??) and I decided to take some shots.

I have an Olympus FE 240 camera, nothing special about it, 7.1 megapixels, 5x optical zoom, anti shake. I focused the telescope on the moon, played witht he various eye pieces till I got what I wanted and then held the camera to the lense and took some pics.

Over the course of the night, I took maybe 40 pics, of which 4 or 5 were passable.

It struck me that there has got to be an easier way to do this though. I did a bit of looking on the net, but everything I found involved connecting an SLR type camera to the telescope.

Is it possible to get an eyepiece with a built in ccd that connects to the laptop through usb? If so, can anyone recommend one or at least tell me what it is I should be looking for?

I had thought to butcher an old web camera and create my own, but it will only give max resolution of 1024x768.

I have attached one of the pics, it was taken in colour, converted to greyscale and the moon was centered on the image, just to make it look better.

Anyway, thanks in advance.

mike65

Head over to the Photography board

Moon thread

Mike.

Delphi91

Hi mj,

I too bought the Lidl scope. I haven't used it too much, but hopefully will.

There's a very good website based around that particular brand of scope It includes loads of info on astrophotography - how to attach digital slr's, etc.http://www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html

More out of curiosity than anything else, I took a shot with a Nikon D50 on a tripod and a 300mm zoom lens before Xmas and got the attached shot.

mjsmyth

Thanks guys.

Nice pic by the way.

mj