Astrophotography Digital Picture Gallery

How did I take my Moon digital pictures? 

       Note: I plan to update this page once I master taking moon shots with my Canon EOS D60. This page was written when I was using Olympus C3030 for astrophotography.

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:

1.  I attached my camera to the eyepiece by using Scopetronix Digi T adapter . 

2.  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.

3.  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.

4.  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.