I’m no expert in photography but I’m willing to share with you what I’ve learned.
Equipment:
- Olympus C3030 (Digital Camera).
- Meade’s ETX-90EC Telescope.
- ScopeTronix Digi T Adapter to attach my camera to eyepiece.
- ScopeTronix 40mm Eyepiece to avoid vignetting. (When using Meade’s 28mm eyepiece, there was some vignetting around the edges of the image so I found the only solution was to buy Scopetronix 40mm Eyepiece).
For close up pictures of the moon, I used Meade’s 26mm Eyepiece + 2x Barlow.
Steps:
- I attached my camera to the eyepiece by using Scopetronix Digi T adapter .
- I turned my camera on, set it on A/S/M mode and did the following:
- I turned the flash off.
- After that, I turned on the LCD screen and chose the following settings: (F2.8, shutter speed*, SHQ, M, AF**, ISO 100 and set the drive on self-timer)
*Shutter Speed depends on the moon phase for example:
- Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent (Day 3)=> Shutter Speed was set on 1/10.
- Moon Phase: First Quarter (Day 7)=> Shutter speed was set on 1/40.
- Moon Phase: Full Moon (Day 15)=> Shutter speed was set on 1/600.
You know what shutter speed is, right? Just Kidding! ☺
**AF : I read somewhere for astrophotography, you should set it on MF “infinity” but, anyway, it didn’t work for me.
- I adjusted the focus by tuning the telescope’s focus knob slowly ’till the image on the LCD screen looked sharp. In another words, I adjusted the knob ’till I saw the craters of the moon sharp and clear on the LCD screen.
Finally, I pressed on that self-timer to take those nice pictures.
Simple, isn’t it? Good luck! ☺
Notes:
- Take moon pictures when the weather is nice (not so warm) to avoid “noisy” pictures.
- Use a self-timer to get sharp pictures. Your hand will shake the telescope lens when you click on the shutter release button.
- When I used my Canon EOS D60, I used a t-adapter to attach the camera to back of the Telescope. It’s called Prime Focus Astrophotography. You have to have a sharp eye to adjust the focus.
