NCKAS - Moon Astrophotos

We used an Olympus C3040 Digital Camera on a tripod and tried direct eyepiece projection. Low budget eh? Anyway, we got out first experience with Astrophotography while awaiting some more photography equipment which will make this process much easier. The particulars: (which we will refine as we learn more...) Click the image for a larger view.

The telescope setup was a Celestron NEXSTAR 8 fully computerized "Go To" telescope. (Super for portability)
Eyepieces: 40mm Plössel, 35mm Ultima, 23mm Axiom, and an Ultima 2x Barlow lens all from Celestron.
Digital Photo with 23mm Ultima Eyepiece (Ocular) projection. Essentially f/10 exposure. Shutter speed at 1/250. ASA setting at 400.

Used an Olympus C3040 Digital Camera, this time using eyepiece projection with a Tele-Extender. Man is this hard. Found out that this is for 35mm SLR cameras for sure! It's like looking through a straw. The size of the image is sooooo small, I used digital zoom to to have anything to digitize. Found out that it is really tricky to focus mainly due to the problem that clear focus on the rear LCD display does not mean clear focus on the picture. Anyway, here it is both bad and good. Click on the thumbnail for a larger image

The telescope setup was a Celestron NEXSTAR 8 fully computerized "Go To" telescope. (Super for portability)
Eyepieces: 40mm Plössel, 35mm Ultima, 23mm Axiom, and an Ultima 2x Barlow lens all from Celestron.
Digital Photos with 23mm Ultima Eyepiece (Ocular) projection through Celestrons Deluxe Tele-Extender (click each thumbnail to bring up the full size)

Used the NexStar 8" at f/10 with an Olympus Digital D3040 camera to image this photo of the prominate crater Plato, the Alps mountain range and the Alpine valley. Click on the picture to open a larger version.