Lunar Craters With Telescope Compact Combo

[Les]

A compact and a digiscope bracket can be a ideal setup for Lunar work with any sized telescope.

These images of two of the Moons finest craters were taken with a Nikon 29L compact attached to a 16" Newtonian reflector.

The first image shows the wonderful Copernicus a vast 95km diameter 4km deep pit with terraced walls with Mt Blanc sized mountains in its floor The  shadow filled crater above is the 50 km Reinhold. Below are the  Carpathian Mountains that rival the European Alps height wise.

The second image is Plato a shallow crater 100km wide almost completely flooded billions of years ago by ancient lava from the nearby Mare Imbrium  (Sea Of Rains) seen above right.

The eyepiece used was a 25mm Plossl.

The camera was set at Landscape mode.

[Les]

I thought you would like to see the setup when these images were taken. Look closely you'll see the Moon's image on the L29 screen. Because the Moon is so bright in the eyepiece it is advisable to set the Exposure Compensation setting to at least -1.3.Its better to have the original image too dark than over exposed and washed out as a darker image can be brighten up using Faststone without losing detail.

A digiscoping bracket is not strictly necessary as I've heard of people using phone cameras free held at the eyepiece getting decent results but a bracket make the chance of getting a really good image much greater especially if the delay timer is used.

The humble compact can give relatively good results with the naked eye planets, and even the brighter wider binary stars. With   the proper filters I've had success imaging sunspots with this system.

[Clicker]

Thanks for that Les ....some interesting images especially when you explain the relevant topography too ...I am amazed at what you are able to capture  ... Look forward  to more of your  lunar and astral images ....

[Clicker]

I've just bought the other half a rangefinder scope for his air-rifle ... can that be adapted to use with a camera or smart phone for bird images Les ?.. it has a range of 1500 metres.... 

[Denis]

Fascinating stuff Les, a subject I could never tire of !

 

[Les]

Thanks for the replies.

Clicker, the Universal astro digiscoping  bracket that I use is ideal for astronomical telescopes and spotter scopes with a eyepiece barrel diameter of 1.25". I don't know anything about the optical characteristics of rangefinder scopes but if you can somehow attach a digiscope bracket or adaptor to the device I cant see why results cant be gleaned.

Smart phone digiscoping adapters are available but as I have never used one I cant comment, but seeing that everything must hand held no matter what the smart phone route would probably be the better route than a cumbersome  and heavy astro adaptor.

One major problem with digiscoping is vignetting  and a certain amount of digital zoom is necessary when using a compact camera so in a fixed magnifying device this will need to be dealt with  by cropping when processing the image.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Les