question about film astro photography

Hello to all
I'm fairly new to this group and astronomy and astro photography in
general. I have tried
to take a few shots of the moon over the years unsuccessfully.The
problem is I always get a bright ball of light in the sky with no
features.I'm wondering if anyone can give me any hints on shooting the
moon and maybe
even Orion for beginners. Here's what I have right now. I have an older
Minolta,its the last model x-9 and takes great pictures but I only
have one lens right now.The lens is a Sigma 75-250mm lens. I have a couple
rolls of Kodak 400 speed film.I do have a couple tripods and also a
Meade etx-60at that I can piggyback the camera on for long exposures
but have never tried it.Figured I better practice on shorter exposures
of the moon first.Problem is I'm not sure of the f setting and exposure
time with the lens fully zoomed on the moon at say a full or half moon
which should be pretty bright here.Almost forgot,it is pretty dark at
this location as I'm in a very rural area.
One other question. I found a little program I'm sure many of you have
seen called Telescope Simulator, it simulates the view of different
planets (of your choice)from the results of your selection of focal
length,aperture and different eye pieces used in different sized
scopes. It has helped me make a decision on what type and size of
telescope I want to use. I'm wondering if there is anything like that
for film photography to help a person set the exposure time and f
stops for different situations like maybe astrophotography ?
Just want to say thanks to anyone with any tips on these questions.
Regards......................... Jim

Jim wrote:
I'm fairly new to this group and astronomy and astro photography in
general. I have tried
to take a few shots of the moon over the years unsuccessfully. snip
I have an older . . . The lens is a Sigma 75-250mm lens. snip

The following book has a series of tables and explanations on how to
take photographs with an unmounted 35mm camera.

Covington, M. 2ed. 2002. Astrophotography for the Amateur. Cambridge.
ISBN 0-521-62740-0
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/

Before you get the book, you can use online film exposure calculators
to estimate exposure times:
http://www.rphotoz.com/astrophoto/expcalcs.html
- that are built around Covington's book and downloadable exposure
calculator:
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/...astrosoft.html

Jerry Lodriguss's website has good tips online.
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTRO...0602/I0602.HTM
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/TOC_AP.HTM

Constellation shots are a good place to start.
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sowlist.html

For constellation shots, go to a dark sky rural site. Start out with a
50mm lens at f/2.8. With ISO 400 film, try a series of exposures at 10
sec intervals from 20 through 50 secs. This will let you hone in on
the right exposure time. It also helps to have a gray card and a red
flashlight. Between each sky exposure, exposure a quick shot of the
red light on the grey card. That will help the photo lab decide where
one frame starts and ends.

For starter photos, star trails are also interesting.
See - Lodriguss on star trails
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTRO...0601/I0601.HTM

A variant of the star trail technique is the defocused star trail
method, popularized by David Malin:
http://www.aao.gov.au/images/captions/misc011.html

This is done by starting out the exposure focused, and then turning to
defocus every ten seconds.

The constellation Orion, currently overhead, looks particularly cool
using this technique. It really brings out the spectral colors of the
stars.
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/class-g.html

- Canopus56

Thanks for the info. I found the jerry lodiguss website and will be
checking it out often. The calculator looks like something I'm interested in
also.
I will have to invest in a couple more lenses also but have enough info to
get started experimenting with what I have.All I need now are clear skies,
hopefully I wont have to wait much longer.Thanks again. Jim
"Jim" wrote in message
...
Hello to all
I'm fairly new to this group and astronomy and astro photography in
general. I have tried
to take a few shots of the moon over the years unsuccessfully.The
problem is I always get a bright ball of light in the sky with no
features.I'm wondering if anyone can give me any hints on shooting the
moon and maybe
even Orion for beginners. Here's what I have right now. I have an older
Minolta,its the last model x-9 and takes great pictures but I only
have one lens right now.The lens is a Sigma 75-250mm lens. I have a couple
rolls of Kodak 400 speed film.I do have a couple tripods and also a
Meade etx-60at that I can piggyback the camera on for long exposures
but have never tried it.Figured I better practice on shorter exposures
of the moon first.Problem is I'm not sure of the f setting and exposure
time with the lens fully zoomed on the moon at say a full or half moon
which should be pretty bright here.Almost forgot,it is pretty dark at
this location as I'm in a very rural area.
One other question. I found a little program I'm sure many of you have
seen called Telescope Simulator, it simulates the view of different
planets (of your choice)from the results of your selection of focal
length,aperture and different eye pieces used in different sized
scopes. It has helped me make a decision on what type and size of
telescope I want to use. I'm wondering if there is anything like that
for film photography to help a person set the exposure time and f
stops for different situations like maybe astrophotography ?
Just want to say thanks to anyone with any tips on these questions.
Regards......................... Jim