Mostly this thread is for pics I (or others--post 'em if you've got 'em ) of the night sky, but first some backstory (cuz what post would be any good from me, if it didn't ramble on first).
I've almost always been interested in the sky, especially at night, and once I learned what is (or might be) actually up there, and each bit more I learn, the more interested I became.
I've had little telescopes (mostly junk kids' stuff from yardsales/etc); I found a decent Meade at Goodwill some years ago but it needs it's tracker gearing fixed, and I still don't know if I still ahve the hand control unit (taht also lets me hook it up to a PC), cuz so much stuff was lost in the post-fire cleanup.
(some posts about that one
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=697923#p697923
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12500&p=701492&hilit=meade#p701042
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12500&p=701492&hilit=meade#p701492 )
Before the fire I was going to make a mount to use the Canon DSLR that GMUseless had sent me, to start taking good pics with it, but I didnt' get around to that before I lost that camera in the fire. I didn't even get back to looking for the scope stuff until a while I after I moved back into the house a couple of years ago. (feels longer).
I'd wanted to make a mount for the one Hora from OHBB had sent me afterward, but I never got around to it; and that camera began a slow death, getting random lines and heavy on the green in the images. (I suspect a loose connection inside but didn't open it up as I don't know that I could put it back together afterward; most of these things aren't built to be disassembled without factory tools, and I don't see or move as well as I used to).
So....on to now.
Now I have a "new" old camera, from Cvin; it's a Sony DSC-H9, and it's manual settings and such are better than the old lost Canon DSLR. By itself it can take some pretty decent star pics.... I wasnt' actually trying to do it at first, but accidentally snapped a pic of sky while trying to figure out the flash and stuff, and then figured out the other stuff like turning off autofocus (which can't even be done on a lot of cameras these days, making them useless to me for most things).
I did have to develop a system to get the right star/etc in frame, by turning on the Nightshot mode, which makes even reasonably faint stars show up on the LCD realtime (where they won't in any othe rmode without long exposures of several seconds), then when I've got it centered I turn off Nightshot and then manually set focus to infinity, and leave it in Aperture mode whcih does better so far than any other (dunno how to fully use manual mode yet).
Anyhow, some of the better pics, which include the Plieades, Orion (you can even see part of the nebula; looks like a fuzzy star), the moon, etc.
I had to upload them as full resolution, though...otherwise nothing much shows up.
One problem, though...at max 15x zoom, the earth's rotation causes all stars/etc to turn into short lines rather than nice sharp points. :/ That's where the whole telescope thing comes in...if I can find the handheld thing for the Meade, and fix it's gearing, I could make the mount to hold this camera on it and use the scope and whatnot to do star-tracking, and get much better pics.
I've almost always been interested in the sky, especially at night, and once I learned what is (or might be) actually up there, and each bit more I learn, the more interested I became.
I've had little telescopes (mostly junk kids' stuff from yardsales/etc); I found a decent Meade at Goodwill some years ago but it needs it's tracker gearing fixed, and I still don't know if I still ahve the hand control unit (taht also lets me hook it up to a PC), cuz so much stuff was lost in the post-fire cleanup.
(some posts about that one
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=697923#p697923
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12500&p=701492&hilit=meade#p701042
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12500&p=701492&hilit=meade#p701492 )
Before the fire I was going to make a mount to use the Canon DSLR that GMUseless had sent me, to start taking good pics with it, but I didnt' get around to that before I lost that camera in the fire. I didn't even get back to looking for the scope stuff until a while I after I moved back into the house a couple of years ago. (feels longer).
I'd wanted to make a mount for the one Hora from OHBB had sent me afterward, but I never got around to it; and that camera began a slow death, getting random lines and heavy on the green in the images. (I suspect a loose connection inside but didn't open it up as I don't know that I could put it back together afterward; most of these things aren't built to be disassembled without factory tools, and I don't see or move as well as I used to).
So....on to now.
Now I have a "new" old camera, from Cvin; it's a Sony DSC-H9, and it's manual settings and such are better than the old lost Canon DSLR. By itself it can take some pretty decent star pics.... I wasnt' actually trying to do it at first, but accidentally snapped a pic of sky while trying to figure out the flash and stuff, and then figured out the other stuff like turning off autofocus (which can't even be done on a lot of cameras these days, making them useless to me for most things).
I did have to develop a system to get the right star/etc in frame, by turning on the Nightshot mode, which makes even reasonably faint stars show up on the LCD realtime (where they won't in any othe rmode without long exposures of several seconds), then when I've got it centered I turn off Nightshot and then manually set focus to infinity, and leave it in Aperture mode whcih does better so far than any other (dunno how to fully use manual mode yet).
Anyhow, some of the better pics, which include the Plieades, Orion (you can even see part of the nebula; looks like a fuzzy star), the moon, etc.
I had to upload them as full resolution, though...otherwise nothing much shows up.
One problem, though...at max 15x zoom, the earth's rotation causes all stars/etc to turn into short lines rather than nice sharp points. :/ That's where the whole telescope thing comes in...if I can find the handheld thing for the Meade, and fix it's gearing, I could make the mount to hold this camera on it and use the scope and whatnot to do star-tracking, and get much better pics.
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