We at cadsas.com had an excellent observing night, tonight.
“Spring Guide to the Night Sky” public event.. totally horrible, rainy and windy weather at 5pm. Event starts 6.30pm..
All clear! Plus very clean skies, after all the rain. Looked at 1st magnitude stars as they appeared from the twilight, then observed Orion and Saturn.
We also saw two great fly-overs of the International Space Station (ISS) – the second pass was particularly bright.
About, 25 Cub Scouts came along with their Cub leaders.. made for a busy event.
Plus, I tried my Canon Digital SLR Camera
Fitted well mechanically, but poor images..
Here’s an example of an out-of-focus Betegeuse in Orion.
In Sufficient Focusser In-Travel On Star Betelgeuse
Insufficient in-travel on the focusser… It was not possible to move the camera in close enough, to bring the image to focus.
The difference between the Canon and the Mintron camera that’s usually used with this telescope, is the position of the ccd chip within the camera body. The Mintron has its chip very close to the front of the lens opening. The Canon’s chip however, is much deeper within the body.
However, we were much encouraged by the likely light-gathering power and plan to modify the focusser to move it’s travel inside of the tube. (We did consider moving the mirrors instead, to push the focal plane further outside of the telescope tube, but felt this would be too radical)
Stay tuned!
This will work, one way or another and deliver good results!
I find info about slr camera and your blog have very good content and infomation about that Thank you.