First Time Astro Photographer

On Tuesday evening I was blessed with clear skies and lugged my Meade
ETX 125EC outside and got going. I've got AutoStar and had it
tracking Saturn and Jupiter.

After selecting a 15mm eyepiece and putting it in an Orion SteadyPix I
attached my old Nikon CoolPix 800, set focus to infinity, disabled
flash and learned a little about adjusting for the added masse of the
camera. I took several exposures using the timed shutter release, but
I'm a bit unimpressed with the results.

This was the best of the lot.

http://www.dragonswest.com/jupiter.jpg


The CoolPix 800 doesn't appear to allow for manual shutterspeed
setting. Any suggestions for cutting back on the light?

The CoolPix 800 doesn't appear to allow for manual shutterspeed
setting. Any suggestions for cutting back on the light?

Not familiar with the 800, but one trick I used with some success on a Olympus
D400z is to leave the flash turned on.

jon

Sorry but I am not trying to be discouraging. But I got a problem figuring
which is which?

Big Jupiter with Saturn
Moon with small Jup and Sat?

Good try but got to try hard.

BTW, I don't even know how to set up nor do I have the necessary eqpt.


"Richard Adams" wrote in message
om...
On Tuesday evening I was blessed with clear skies and lugged my Meade
ETX 125EC outside and got going. I've got AutoStar and had it
tracking Saturn and Jupiter.

After selecting a 15mm eyepiece and putting it in an Orion SteadyPix I
attached my old Nikon CoolPix 800, set focus to infinity, disabled
flash and learned a little about adjusting for the added masse of the
camera. I took several exposures using the timed shutter release, but
I'm a bit unimpressed with the results.

This was the best of the lot.

http://www.dragonswest.com/jupiter.jpg


The CoolPix 800 doesn't appear to allow for manual shutterspeed
setting. Any suggestions for cutting back on the light?

Pions wrote:

Two images of Jupiter with a couple of the moons just above.

Sorry but I am not trying to be discouraging. But I got a problem figuring
which is which?

Big Jupiter with Saturn
Moon with small Jup and Sat?

Good try but got to try hard.

BTW, I don't even know how to set up nor do I have the necessary eqpt.


"Richard Adams" wrote in message
om...

On Tuesday evening I was blessed with clear skies and lugged my Meade
ETX 125EC outside and got going. I've got AutoStar and had it
tracking Saturn and Jupiter.

After selecting a 15mm eyepiece and putting it in an Orion SteadyPix I
attached my old Nikon CoolPix 800, set focus to infinity, disabled
flash and learned a little about adjusting for the added masse of the
camera. I took several exposures using the timed shutter release, but
I'm a bit unimpressed with the results.

This was the best of the lot.

http://www.dragonswest.com/jupiter.jpg


The CoolPix 800 doesn't appear to allow for manual shutterspeed
setting. Any suggestions for cutting back on the light?

"Richard Adams" wrote in message
om...
(snip)
The CoolPix 800 doesn't appear to allow for manual shutterspeed
setting. Any suggestions for cutting back on the light?

Some cameras have a spotlight mode, which might help. Leaving the flash on
as Jon suggested and experimenting with exposure compensation is worth a
shot. It is neat to see the position of the moons though, you could try
taking pictures at regular intervals to record their movement.

JK

I did a search of the Nikon CP 800 and I found that the shutter speed range
is from 1/750 to 8 seconds.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...o&vi=tech-data

Best regards,
Bill


"Richard Adams" wrote in message
om...
On Tuesday evening I was blessed with clear skies and lugged my Meade
ETX 125EC outside and got going. I've got AutoStar and had it
tracking Saturn and Jupiter.

After selecting a 15mm eyepiece and putting it in an Orion SteadyPix I
attached my old Nikon CoolPix 800, set focus to infinity, disabled
flash and learned a little about adjusting for the added masse of the
camera. I took several exposures using the timed shutter release, but
I'm a bit unimpressed with the results.

This was the best of the lot.

http://www.dragonswest.com/jupiter.jpg


The CoolPix 800 doesn't appear to allow for manual shutterspeed
setting. Any suggestions for cutting back on the light?

Bill,

The speed is auto, there's no manual way to say, "I want a 1 sec.
exposure", like I can do with my old Nikon FE2 35mm camera.

Bill Becker wrote:
I did a search of the Nikon CP 800 and I found that the shutter speed range
is from 1/750 to 8 seconds.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...o&vi=tech-data

Best regards,
Bill


"Richard Adams" wrote in message
om...

On Tuesday evening I was blessed with clear skies and lugged my Meade
ETX 125EC outside and got going. I've got AutoStar and had it
tracking Saturn and Jupiter.

After selecting a 15mm eyepiece and putting it in an Orion SteadyPix I
attached my old Nikon CoolPix 800, set focus to infinity, disabled
flash and learned a little about adjusting for the added masse of the
camera. I took several exposures using the timed shutter release, but
I'm a bit unimpressed with the results.

This was the best of the lot.

http://www.dragonswest.com/jupiter.jpg


The CoolPix 800 doesn't appear to allow for manual shutterspeed
setting. Any suggestions for cutting back on the light?

Bill, perhaps you can use the shutter priority mode
Regards, Martin

Two other things you could try...

Stop down the scope's aperture (at the expense of resolution) or get a
variable neutral density filter to screw on to your eyepieces.

Bryan


Richard Adams wrote:
On Tuesday evening I was blessed with clear skies and lugged my Meade
ETX 125EC outside and got going. I've got AutoStar and had it
tracking Saturn and Jupiter.

After selecting a 15mm eyepiece and putting it in an Orion SteadyPix I
attached my old Nikon CoolPix 800, set focus to infinity, disabled
flash and learned a little about adjusting for the added masse of the
camera. I took several exposures using the timed shutter release, but
I'm a bit unimpressed with the results.

This was the best of the lot.

http://www.dragonswest.com/jupiter.jpg


The CoolPix 800 doesn't appear to allow for manual shutterspeed
setting. Any suggestions for cutting back on the light?