The second is the shot through the telescope, showing an impressive amount of detail, including insects flying around the tree.īecause the slightest movement of the telescope results in massive movement on the camera, it is necessary to either use a remote shutter release (if you're lucky enough to have a camera with one), or to use the self timer on the shortest setting, to ensure that the telescope is not shaking when the photo is taken. The first photo is my compact camera at full zoom. I did however take a test shot of the next door neighbour's conifer. Due to an extended period of overcast weather, I haven't been able to test the mount at night. Having got everything fitted nicely, I decided to test the mount. I was fortunate to discover that if necessary I could still look through the eyepiece with the adaptor attached. The cardboard mount can now simply be slid on and off as needed. This shouldn't interfere with normal operation of the telescope, so it can be left on permanently. I used more electrical tape to secure the extra cardboard to the eyepiece mount. At this stage I realised that my cardboard tube was a millimetre or so too big, so I used some of the off cuts of the cardboard tube to adjust the fit. Once I determined that I cut the tube to length, and made a pencil mark on the tube to line up with the eyepiece thumbscrew. In order to get the correct distance for the camera to the eyepiece, I pointed the telescope at a tree, mounted the camera, and slid the tube up and down until the picture on the camera screen was right. One hassle I ran into was that the cardboard tube interfered with the rack for the focusing mechanism, so I cut a slot for this. I found the easiest way to do this was to simply cut a vertical slit in the cardboard tube for the eyepiece thumb screw to fit into, and slide the tube over the eyepiece mount. In order to be able to take photos through the eyepiece the camera needs to be held so that its lens sits where your eye would while looking through the telescope. Hopefully what photos I do have should be enough. One last thing, this is my first Instructable, and while I thought I took enough photos during the process, I discovered a few things that I missed. Photographing faint objects requires a computerised mount, a DSLR, and long exposure times. It's important to note that this mount isn't really suitable or photographing anything but the moon, and other bright objects (planets like Venus and Jupiter may be bright enough). Still, even if I only get a handful of uses, I can soon knock up another mount in about 20 to 30 minutes. I'm not expecting the mount to be long lasting, as it's quite common to get condensation while observing at night, which may cause problems with the cardboard. The end result, after a bit of experimentation, is a surprisingly secure mount, made at zero cost to myself. I had the idea to use a cardboard tube to make an adapter from. I wanted something easy to make, and which used stuff I had laying around if possible. I've been wanting to try my hand at astrophotography for a while now, so I decided to see if I could make a camera adapter for my telescope (an old Meade 4500 Newtonian). Looking at the night sky through a telescope is an amazing experience, and one that I've wanted to be able to record somehow.
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