tatebigpapa Loc: Riverside, Ca.

Greetings fellow Hedghogs. I have been trying my hand at night sky photography with a measure of success. To further that effort I have obtained a Meade LS 8 inch telescope and the, what I think, are the necessary adaptors. During my first excursion to Anza Borrego during the last new moon I had no success what so ever trying to take shots through the telescope with my T3i. Does anyone out there have any experience shooting through a telescope? The pic. is the set up I am attempting to use.

Meade 8" LS with T3i attached

oldtigger Loc: Roanoke Virginia-USA

describe your difficulty/results.

tatebigpapa Loc: Riverside, Ca.

My difficulty was two fold. I was unable to focus. I had my camera in live mode and could see nothing on the screen. I put it back in normal view through the eye piece and had the same result. I had previously sighted the telescope on Jupiter and it was auto-tracking so I know it was seeing the object I was attempting to shoot.

oldtigger Loc: Roanoke Virginia-USA

ok, when you took the camera off and put the eyepiece on the scope what did you see through the scope?

tatebigpapa Loc: Riverside, Ca.

Jupiter. The telescope is functioning normally. I think that I was so out of focus that I couldn't see anything.

oldtigger Loc: Roanoke Virginia-USA

ok, you had light and subject, all you needed was focus.

what was between the cat and the camera? what was your image forming lens?
There is a tube on the cat, does it have lenses in it?

tatebigpapa Loc: Riverside, Ca.

The T mount I have screws directly on to the back of the telescope. It replaces the telescope eye piece. It is a hollow tube that then attaches to a ring adaptor on my camera. This set up has no optics in it. I was under the impression that the telescope would serve as the lens.

oldtigger Loc: Roanoke Virginia-USA

in my experience, you insert your eyepiece of choice into the tube, tighten it down, attach camera and you're ready to shoot.

there are adapters that contain an image forming lens set. Did your adapter tube have a thumb screw on it?

Once you have your optical path, Rack the focus from end to end. Somewhere in there you will get an image. wait a few seconds, refine focus and repeat a few times till its clear and you're ready to go. Works every time

dlmorris Loc: Loma Linda, Ca

It looks like your adapter is too long. I'm not sure if the 8" will accept a 2" adapter or not. Otherwise get a 1 1/4 T adapter that fits on the camera and directly into the telescope. (You may have to get another adapter that fits on the telescope itself. That's what I do. But keep it short. Don't use the diagonal.). Try focusing on some far away object during the daytime to work out the bugs.
You must live here in California! Make a visit to Oceanside Telescope. They are very good and can help you out.
Another thing, for any kind of longer exposures, you MUST mount your telescope equatorially. (The rotational axis aimed at the North Pole). Otherwise you'll get major star rotation.
Once you get the telescope polar aligned, try mounting the camera piggyback on the scope, and just use your regular camera lens to take some pictures. Guiding and alignment are much easier, and you'll learn a lot, plus get some good results right away.
One of my hobbies is astro photography, I just haven't had the courage to post anything here. I've actually graduated from using an older Meade 10" LX 200 to just using my camera and existing lenses on a simple tracker (somehow, as I age, that LX 200 seems heaver....!!).
Oh, one more thing....once you get the focus issue worked out, with your current setup, you can easily take good pictures of the moon, as exposure times will be in fractions of seconds...

GPappy Loc: Finally decided to plop down, Clover, S.C.

When you focus on an object with the telescope using the supplied eye piece then replace the eyepiece with your camera you are changing the optical length of the set up. You will always have to re-focus when you attach the camera. I did the same thing and didn't realise how far I had to crank the focus on the telescope after I installed the camera. There is a considerable distance difference in the set up. For practice, just set the telescope up and focus on a distant object that isn't going to move, install the camera and re-focus the telescope again until the object is in focus. Also remember there is no changeable iris in the telescope so you will be shooting everything in manual and will need to change shutter speed and/or ISO to get the shot.
Hope this helps and is clear enough in description of set up to get you going.
GP
:lol:

Ralloh Loc: Ohio

I'm jealous. I had the EXT-125PE years ago and did a lot of astrophotography. I only used the Meade camera though. Never attached a DSLR to it. Would love to have an LS some day.

I see some good advice from others. I would add, use a Hartmann Mask for focusing. You can easily make one yourself.

billgdyoung Loc: Big Bear City, CA

just a couple of thoughts:
1) there is a little mechanical switch that drops the diagonal mirror out of the image path... that mirror is the one that directs the image to the eyepiece or to the back of the CTS just like your pictures.
2) In the daytime, point the telescope to a bright stationary object and put your eyeball to the rear of the telescope to see if you can see anything (doesn't matter if it's not focused)... that will tell you that the little mirror is in the right position. If you can see anything bright, then hold the camera up to the telescope and move back and forth till you see "something" in the Live view. As mentioned earlier, the distance from camera to telescope may surprise you how close (or far) you have to have the camera.

I use pretty much the same configuration as in your picture... consider coming up to Big Bear to enjoy really great seeing at night... :-)

CocoaRoger Loc: Cocoa Florida

I am not experienced at the subject at hand but it does seem there has to be SOME kind of ocular or eyepiece to focus the light entering the telescope onto the camera sensor just as it does for the human eye.

oldtigger Loc: Roanoke Virginia-USA

correct

dlmorris Loc: Loma Linda, Ca

Hi Billgdyoung,
Are there some good observing sites in Big Bear? You can contact me through private messaging...
As for using an eyepiece, yes, it can be done, but is mostly useful for the moon or planets, and needs more adapters. It's easier to use the scope itself as a lens. Some people also insert a focal reducer to lesson the power and make for a faster focal ratio.