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Re: [OM] What would be a good lens for astrophotography?

Subject: Re: [OM] What would be a good lens for astrophotography?
From: Claes <alvsborg@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 17:40:24 +0100
At 08:35 1999-03-07 -0500, you wrote:
>I am thinking of getting into astrophotography.   Can I do anyting of any
>substance right off of the camera, or do I need to go full bore with a 8"
>telescope, autoglider, etc.
>Would a 800-1000mm Zoom mirror f8-f12 be sufficient or will it not capture
>anything very well?

You need your camera with a mechanical B-setting, any lens, and a good
equatorial mount and tripod with a motor drive.

I have seen wonderful, breath-taking photos of the sky, portraited with a
wide angle lens. The answer is a good dark sky and long exposure time.
After as little as one minute of exposure, objects that are impossible for
the human eye to detect will be resolved. And objects like the Andromeda
galaxy, which is observed as an object less than 1 degree in size by the
human eye, will cover more than 3 degrees of the sky on a several minutes
exposured film.

Since the Earth rotates, you will need a mount and tripod which will let
you follow the objects movement on the sky. And to that mount, you need a
motor and a hand control for adjustments, and also some kind of finder or
guiding scope which will let you check the sky during the exposure (so that
the object hasn't moved in the field).

I would buy a used or new mount of a type called German Equatorial Mount.
For example Vixen's Great Polaris. I think Orion Telescopes in California
sells that. Or maybe a used one can be found at Astromart on the web.

When you have mounted your camera to the mount, you can start experimenting
with different lenses, everything from a wide lens to a tele.

/claes


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