Digiscoping adaptor

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I have bought a digiscoping adapter from eBay. Until I receive it I shall use the vendor's excellent pictures.

He is being remarkably communicative with email updates of order acceptance and despatch. It is supposed to be coming from Germany so there is hope for an early delivery. Possibly even before Christmas? I doubt it.

It was long overdue that I stopped my hand-held snapping away at astro objects through the eyepiece. I did use an eyepiece clamp and camera plate for the Venus transit. But, it was so incredibly awkward to use with the telescope pointing high up that I never used it again!

I couldn't see the camera focusing screen hidden underneath the camera body without crawling on my knees. Or lying on the wet grass on my back! Even if I did, I couldn't focus my own eyes with my glasses having the reading section at the bottom of the lenses. (as is perfectly normal of course) 

I wanted to use my star diagonal but my home made clamp was for my 2" draw-tube. My star diagonal (at that time) only accepted (normal) 1.25" eyepieces! I now have a 2" star diagonal but it is massively oversized for my 2" clamp. Grrr.  So I really needed a universal camera platform which clamped onto the outside of my 1.25" eyepieces. One which could be (hopefully) set and forgotten. 

I went to the city (Odense) and  dashed about between milling Christmas shoppers. But I failed to find an adaptor in any of the local camera or hunting shops. (Hunting shops stock spotting telescopes)

So I tried eBay. I missed a secondhand one. This went higher than I wanted to pay for a used one including international postage.

So I paid a "Buy it Now" price for half what it would cost me from an online Danish vendor. (Including their ridiculous postal charges!)

The eBay vendor claimed their stock is in Germany. Right next door to Denmark. Their international postal charges are still lower than within Denmark. I will name the vendor on receipt if their service is good enough.  

I'll leave this note until it arrives. Then I can take my own pictures with my camera fitted to an eyepiece. Hopefully the device will improve my astro snaps. I shall write a proper review when I can examine the adapter for myself. Hopefully with some decent lunar images taken with its help.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

Dec 10th 2011 partial lunar eclipse.

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As usual (for me) the partial eclipse was very low and blocked by clouds. The eclipse was already under way as the moon rose. Though it was completely invisible behind the clouds. When it did become visible I took a few snaps with my Panasonic TZ7. The camera was resting on a garden tool handle.

Full zoom with a variety of settings. Night landscape, Normal picture and various AF (auto focussing) settings. Had it been more worthwhile I could have got out my video tripod or even a telescope at low power. As can be seen here the Moon was almost behind the garden hedge. The clouds only added to the drama.

These are only for a record of the event. I have cropped some of them to bring out the moonlit clouds.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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December 2nd 2011

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Another clear evening with occasional plates of cloud passing over. Half moon to the south. Jupiter rising steeply in the east.

6" F:8 Celestron CR150HD refractor on Fullerscopes MkIV mounting. Stopped down to 4" F:12. Afocal image using 20mm no-name Plossl. Sony P71 camera hand-held to eyepiece. No drives running. Cropped, Contrast and Gamma adjusted in PhotoFiltre to bring out detail away from the terminator. 37F. Heavy dew. Thermal effects clearly visible. Moon just above house roof and chimney.

I fitted the black foam into the extended dewshield to kill internal reflections.

Still struggling with dewing of the back of the objective.

The Panasonic TZ7 camera is still failing to capture decent images. This is a snap using a 15mm Meade Plossl. Heavy vignetting, tiny field of view and too high a contrast. Heavily cropped and adjusted in PhotoFiltre. I found a description online of this problem being related to using wide angle camera lens settings. Using a slight amount of zoom may help.