"Jeroen Smaal" wrote...
in message . nl...

"Painius" wrote in message
...

Okay, you lost me here. Say you want to take a picture of
a galaxy. With a certain exposure time, you might just get
the central hub of the galaxy. Expose a little longer and you
get a bit of the spiral near the hub. A longer exposure gets
you the whole galaxy.

What i'm asking here is has anyone invented a digital
camera yet that can expose long enough to get the images
you want of dim objects?

Sure. What's an astronomical CCD other than a specialized digital camera?
Just looking around on the internet you will find many images made with
astronomical CCD cameras of dim objects, with exposure times of many hours.

Some recent consumer digital SLRs (like the Canon EOS 300D) are capable of
exposures of up to 10 minutes or even longer. See this site for some
excellent examples of what can be done with a modern consumer digital
camera:

http://panther-observatory.com (follow the "Gallery/deepsky" links)
http://velatron.com/dca/gallery/

Most of these have been made with a Canon D60.

Jeroen.

Thanks, Jeroen! Are these reliable? I have read that many
cameras that *say* they do long exposures don't actually
deliver the goods. Or after you buy them, you have to figure
out a way to make it do long exp.s because the manual for
the camera does not make it clear how to do it.

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

--
Your heart up hanging on the wall
Just dripping tears so painfully,
You ne'er felt love so true as mine,
I want your heart inside me.

Protected from all manner, form
And shape of harm it will e'er be,
If you say no, I fade and die,
I need your heart inside me.

Paine Ellsworth