Looks like Dingboche? Cracking photo!
Cheers,
Ian
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Snap! (apart from not videoing). We were staying in a gĂźte at a place called ChĂ©mery-sur-bar pretty far north east, and drove about 50 to 100 mile south for the eclipse - offhand I donât remember the location. What distracted me was the overall atmosphere that the uncanny event created especially the sound, with nature fooled into thinking it was suddenly almost night time. I took several photos in the run-up, but during the eclipse very few, just being drawn into it. A stunning experience Iâll never forget, and I did get those few photos.
I should have added above that this was the reason I chose a Dobsonian mounted reflector.
Universally recommended as a quick KISS telescope.
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You could also mention that the light gathering power of a Dobsonian reflector is fantastic for any price point. The 200mm mirror that you have is probably the sweet spot. A friend of mine went for 300mm which is a bit of a beast for one person to lug around. I think he would have used a 200mm more often.
Dobsonians are great for visual astronomy but are generally not suited to astrophotography. I do have a photo taken through one, though it was set up with various extras for that to be possible, which goes against the âkeep it simpleâ principle.
I do find them a bit of a challenge to keep targets in the field of view, for example when swapping eyepieces to a higher power.
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Indeed
There are a lot of disillusioned telescope buyers out there and apart from snapshots of the moon, I do not recommend Astrophotography until users have got to grips with âliveâ analogue astronomy.
With tracking I use the lowest magnification as possible with the widest field of view to minimise âspeedâ but with something like Mars or a beautiful double star I place the object at the furthest edge of the FOV so that I get maximum view time.
I took my family on a stargazing holiday to Portugal, we stayed at an observatory called COAA run by a retired couple. I learned quite a bit about visual observing from Bev who has many years of expertise. One of the most pleasing visual sights was of M13 (the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules). Visually, it lived up to the description of âdiamonds sprinkled on black velvetâ.
Well, I decided to photograph it:
Technical aspects:
I attached my DSLR in place of the eyepiece, known as prime focus photography. The telescope effectively becomes a prime lens. In this case, 2250mm focal length with a 500mm aperture mirror, so quite fast at F4.5. The telescope is a Newtonian (anything else would not be affordable for 500mm). It had an equatorial mount.
It was computerised and aligned to track automatically the Earthâs rotation. In addition, it had autoguiding. That is, a smaller scope piggy-backing the main scope, hooked up to a laptop and then back to the tracker. Software followed a chosen star and corrected for any tracking imperfections. Impressive, but not for beginners really. I think autoguiding is a bit too complicated for me, but interesting to try once. On the other hand, the approximate tracking does seem very useful.
Exposures were limited to 30 seconds and I used ISO 800. Even so, I had to increase exposure by a couple of stops in Photoshop Elements.
We had planned to take lots of photos for me to try my hand at stacking the images. In the end, mainly due to gusts of wind being a bit much for the autoguider, I just took a few shots and used the best individual one.
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@Simon-in-Suffolk Hereâs a real-world back-garden pic of the Orion nebula taken by my son from here in darkest Cornwall a week or so ago.
Itâs a stack of 20 x 30s tracked exposures (+ dark frames), taken on Sony A7 III using 400mm lens + 1.4x converter. At F8 not so fast as youâd get with a nice scope like Ravvie mentioned but still relatively successful - we were pleased anyway! 
Another of Andromeda taken back in the summer using same gear / technique
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These are superb⊠so you used a regular 400mm lens with tekeconverter?
What tracking device did you use?
I use a Pentax Astrotracer (only works on a Pentax DSLR) which is useful to have in the bag as it is smaller than a matchbox. But it is a bit temperamental, so I would like to upgrade it!
Thanks really interesting and a great photo.
The tracker is a Skywatcher StarAdventurer - definitely not one youâd just slip in your pocket but fits in rucksack with the rest of the gear if we decide to try shots from somewhere other than home. The lens is 100-400 zoom
I like to keep abreast of unusual (though often unspectacular) events, so when Mrs R hinted that she wanted to visit the Canaries in November 2019, I took the opportunity to book a daytime tour of the Mount Teide Observatory in Tenerife. I knew that they had a couple of domestic scopes set up for viewing sunspots. But I made sure I picked the day that Mercury would transit (pass directly in front of) the sun. It wonât happen again until 2033 (Mercury transit of course, not winter sun with Mrs R!)
So hereâs my photo. Mercury is the small black dot about half way out from the centre, at â3 oâclockâ on the image.
I just took a snap with my iPhone, holding it up to the eyepiece. This is known as afocal photography. I didnât need to process the image at all, other than cropping it square on my iPad.
Any scope can be used for solar photography, a solar filter is a must of course. Photos of the moon are also possible, due to its brightness. Brackets are available for a phone, but a steady hand can suffice.
Iâve posted this because I thought it might be interesting to show a different visual target and a different photo technique.
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Lovely. I remember watching the transit with my 6" reflectorâŠ
And not one single black sun spot⊠definitely appear to be in a deep solar minimumâŠ
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Couple of weekends ago I was privileged (and I really mean that!!!) to be invited to participate in a âZoom-inarâ given by my Bro-in-Lawâs photographic group (they are all FRPS - so serious folks!) Topic was Astrophotography, with a focus on DSLRs & star fields, but did touch upon planetary & telescopes. The talk was given by Peter Williamson, who is an FRPS, BBC Space Correspondent, does stuff for Radio Shropshire, etc etc.
He uses Canon 70D with a Samyang 14mm f2.8 and a freebie stacking (PC) app called Sequator. AIUI, it is intended for a fixed mount DSLR - i.e. no equatorial tracking needed. You run a sequence of a couple of dozen or so 10s or 20s shots which it stacks together to take out the motion.
Iâm going to try it out come summer, and who knows where it will lead.
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Stunning!!!
Thanks Suzy - that sounds like it would have been a great session⊠I have found this astrophotography game is a real voyage of discovery in every sense. As you suggest, only half of it is actually collecting the images. With the post processing (if youâre into image manipulation) and stacking it can give you hours to spend background listening .
At a basic level I can recommend:
This is my local one, but itâs a U.K. wide event.
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Itâs a clear night here. I couldnât get to my normal darkish site just outside the town so I had to make do with the middle of the playing field.
I managed to spot a reasonably respectable 12 stars inside Orion, excluding the four corners. Result submitted.
I had to use averted vision to spot two of them. According to my star chart, thatâs down to about magnitude 4.5 or so.
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