As seen above, a nearly full Moon.
With the visible Copernicus Crater near the center,
and the huge Tycho Crater further south.
With the visible Copernicus Crater near the center,
and the huge Tycho Crater further south.
My very first astrophotography.
From a very early age I felt fascinated by astronomy and spent hours making planetariums out of paper and sticking them on the living room's ceiling, (unfortunately for my dear and tidy mother) pretending to be an astronaut explorer of the solar system escaping from black holes.
It wasn't until much later that I got myself the opportunity of approaching the heavens, eyes only.
At least for now...
Moon craters in closer detail, with Tycho down right.The best moment to photograph the Moon is when it's semi light , so the shadows enhance the surface details.
There are many gadgets for photographing through a telescope. There are various specially made web cameras that adapt to the telescope's mount while sending images to a pc.
But for my weapon of choice I decided to use my lightest Canon reflex camera, by purchasing an adaptor tube that connects it to the telescope's tube.
No camera lens is used with this system.
The telescope's optics become the lens instead (where you poke the eye at) seeing what the telescope is seeing.
To take a decent image, the main element in play is the time of exposure required by the camera in order to capture enough light.
Graphic designed page I made for a fictional magazine on one of my Strategic Design Master course subjects. The text is in Spanish.
The first piece of advice I found when looking around astronomy forums is to acquire not just the best qualitytelescope you can afford, but a telescope that has the adequate size for what you're going to use it for. A huge chunky scope may be more powerful, but carrying a heavy thing will become a drawback that will eventually make you stop using it completely.
Given my initial interest on scoping deep-sky objects, such asnebulae, and galaxies, hidden in what seems to be a mere black sky I chose a Reflector type telescope, which captures more light due it's mirror based design, which makes them more affordable too. But makes them very poor on details, reason why it's not the most suitable choice for seeing planets: images come out flat and blurry.
The first piece of advice I found when looking around astronomy forums is to acquire not just the best qualitytelescope you can afford, but a telescope that has the adequate size for what you're going to use it for. A huge chunky scope may be more powerful, but carrying a heavy thing will become a drawback that will eventually make you stop using it completely.
Given my initial interest on scoping deep-sky objects, such asnebulae, and galaxies, hidden in what seems to be a mere black sky I chose a Reflector type telescope, which captures more light due it's mirror based design, which makes them more affordable too. But makes them very poor on details, reason why it's not the most suitable choice for seeing planets: images come out flat and blurry.
The night sky as seen on my mother's garden,
my official astronomical observating location.
Orion's constellation and nebulae are in the center
With visible planets, and especially the bright Moon, this can be solved by setting the camera's sensitiveness to the maximum, although it will imply a lot of pixel noise that will be visible when zooming in and editing the picture.
The smoothest option is to add a motor to the mount that will compensate the Earth's rotation, allowing to leave the camera´s shutter open for as long as needed to gather enough light.
The greater the amplification, the more you will notice the movement of the Earth. Managing and aligning some of these motors can be pretty tricky (for me at least) so movement blurriness can be appreciated in these photos.
my official astronomical observating location.
Orion's constellation and nebulae are in the center
With visible planets, and especially the bright Moon, this can be solved by setting the camera's sensitiveness to the maximum, although it will imply a lot of pixel noise that will be visible when zooming in and editing the picture.
The smoothest option is to add a motor to the mount that will compensate the Earth's rotation, allowing to leave the camera´s shutter open for as long as needed to gather enough light.
The greater the amplification, the more you will notice the movement of the Earth. Managing and aligning some of these motors can be pretty tricky (for me at least) so movement blurriness can be appreciated in these photos.
Orion's Nebulae, probably the most amazing stellar sight on Earth, and one of the easiest to find.
In areas free of enough light pollution it's visible to the bare eye.
In this case, it required a nearly three minute long exposure.
An attempt to capture Pleiades Nebulae. Mostly known for its seven main closely gathered stars, when watching them through a medium range telescope you can perceive a gently blue colored glow among them. It's not so easy to photograph, though.
Planet Jupiter with its four main moons
(Europa, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto).
This is as far in detail as you can get with a Reflector telescope. The view is sensitively better di observating directly through the telescope than what the picture shows.
(Europa, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto).
This is as far in detail as you can get with a Reflector telescope. The view is sensitively better di observating directly through the telescope than what the picture shows.
This blurry thing is my proud picture of planet Saturn, my favorite planet in the solar system...
after Earth, of course.
