I tried to mount a D700 on my 11 inch dobstonian and was quite disappointed with the result, the moon at high magnification moves at quite a pace so astrophotography without good motored-tracking is pretty useless.

Probably a Schmidt-Cassegrain of at least 16 inch over dark sky would be better but is probably still a lot of work.

Good luck.

Hi Golf,

I've not been around for quite a while, If your interested in astropotography, then you will need a huge amount of patience,

firstly, i cant see your photo, but from the responses, im assuming that it was a photo of the moon, as Johnnyapple said, to get the sun and moon, is very easy as they are hugely bright images, the only difference is that now you are shooting through the atmosphere,
so you have to remember about scintillation ~(twinkle).
so even if you do have the shutter speed at 1/500, the image wont necessarily be sharp across the whole image, so you will need to take a series of say 30 exposures and then use an astronomical stacking program to combine the image and get the best possible result.

as for the differences between refractors and reflectors,
would you like to hold a lens that was 2500mm long, probably not,
the longer the telescope the more chance that it will be a reflector.

when you are purchasing quality telescopes, things like chromatic aberration are not a problem, only on the cheap scopes will you find these problems.

Refractors are better for the wide angle photos, things like the moon, some of the larger cluster, ect. its only when you need some of the smaller objects, then you need to get a reflector, ect.

As for the fainter objects, which includes nearly everything else, you will need some sort of tracking mount, these range from a few hundred pounds up to 1000's.

If you want some inspiration have a look at one of our members who only uses a dslr.

http://www.markshelley.co.uk/Astronomy/

Mac.

if U need more info, plz check the main page, there was an article about digiscoping couple months ago

Yes, I don't consider myself an expert, BP. The one listed online is not the same one I saw in the warehouse.

It would be interesting to check which setup would win because there are advantages to a reflector over a refractor—specifically, no chromatic aberration and less lens flare. The 500mm reflex nikkor is a lens I've been intereted in, though. I was close to buying it from someone who was selling it a year ago but when I showed interest he decided to keep it. How's that for a catch-22?

I just did some quick research and found that the telescope you reference is a 1600mm scope. So, your basic 500mm on a dx body with a 2x TC will get you pretty close and probably yield better results than a cheap telescope. For exposure, if I remember correctly, you just use the basic sunny 16 chart and just adjust from there depending on lunar phase.

I may be way off on the exposure, it just sounds familiar for some reason.

I'd be weary of any cheap telescopes, and pretty much anything from Costco, Walmart or any department store would fall into that category. Imagine the kind of results you would get with a $100 third part telephoto zoom with stacked teleconverters on a cheap $20 tripod, and you can imagine what results you would get.

I have piggybacked on an 11-inch telescope. There's really not a lot to it to get shots of the moon and the sun (with a filter). There are/were some great astrophotographers on the forum (not me) and they have given some good advice on other threads.

I saw a celestron at costco (not sure of the specs) with what looked like a computer-controlled mount for $200 (I'll have to look more carefully next time). It's another $40 to buy a t-adapter and a nikon t-ring on amazon and you're set. Focusing is easy if you've got a camera with live view.

You should be able to see some dimmer things with long exposures and the tracking mount. I almost want to buy that telescope and use just the mount for some wide angle astrophotography and panning in time lapse videos. I know my son would love it so maybe I should buy it "for him" for Christmas...

Good day,

I saw this picture taken by incorporating at D700 with a 10-inch f/6.3 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (Meade LX200). Wanted to know if anyone has ever had a setup of this nature and what their results have been.

Thanks in advance