Terence Baz
April 14, 2008, 02:58:22
I recently bought a DMK 21AU04.AS camera. I have an old Super C8 and a Newtonian f/5 scope.
I have used the C8 in the past with Konica ASA 3200 film to take images of sun spots using a Thousand Oaks Type 3 solar filter. I took both prime focus & eyepiece projection photos (using a tele-extender) & I was pretty happy with the results.
Last weekend, I tried to use the digital camera doing the same thing but I could not find the focal point for the camera. Eventually, I used an Orion Steady Pix adapter with the camera but had to bring the camera as close as possible to the visual back of the Celestron but even then, I could not get the camera close enough to make the image sharp.
I thought I would have better luck with the Newtonian trying to image Saturn the following night but the same thing happened. In both cases, I even had to take off the camera's eyepiece holder to get it closer but still the image was not sharp enough.
Both scopes are well collimated with excellent optics & I can obtain very sharp visual images with both of them. What am I doing wrong? Any suggestions? I thought that finding the focal point would be the least of my problems.
I have used the C8 in the past with Konica ASA 3200 film to take images of sun spots using a Thousand Oaks Type 3 solar filter. I took both prime focus & eyepiece projection photos (using a tele-extender) & I was pretty happy with the results.
Last weekend, I tried to use the digital camera doing the same thing but I could not find the focal point for the camera. Eventually, I used an Orion Steady Pix adapter with the camera but had to bring the camera as close as possible to the visual back of the Celestron but even then, I could not get the camera close enough to make the image sharp.
I thought I would have better luck with the Newtonian trying to image Saturn the following night but the same thing happened. In both cases, I even had to take off the camera's eyepiece holder to get it closer but still the image was not sharp enough.
Both scopes are well collimated with excellent optics & I can obtain very sharp visual images with both of them. What am I doing wrong? Any suggestions? I thought that finding the focal point would be the least of my problems.