Astronomy, Photography and Weather

Decided to try something a little different yesterday.. and took the C80ED with me to the nature reserve...apart from getting some odd looks carrying the OTA on a tripod through the grounds... and then fighting with manual focus... once I'd gotten my eye in... 1200mm does wonders for birds a long way away... although having one hand on the focus knob, one hand on the 3 way head adjustments and one hand on the shutter release was a challenge.. and f/15 made the shutter speeds tricky ...

They are virtually uncropped... just a little off where needed for composition... I'm afraid my poor brain had enough to deal with  :mrgreen:

1)
(http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg118/johns_bucketofphotos/birds/IMG_2542.jpg)

2)
(http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg118/johns_bucketofphotos/birds/IMG_2576.jpg)

3)
(http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg118/johns_bucketofphotos/birds/IMG_2694.jpg)

4)
(http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg118/johns_bucketofphotos/birds/IMG_2673.jpg)

5)
(http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg118/johns_bucketofphotos/birds/IMG_2675.jpg)

6)
(http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg118/johns_bucketofphotos/birds/IMG_2683.jpg)

7)
(http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg118/johns_bucketofphotos/birds/IMG_2742.jpg)

8)
(http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg118/johns_bucketofphotos/birds/IMG_2746.jpg)

9)
(http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg118/johns_bucketofphotos/birds/IMG_2747.jpg)

Fantastic shots John!  I've used my etx90 for bird shots before, lovely close up potential but terribly slow fratio.  Tripod and remote are a must!

Super set of photos! I bet those grebes thought they were out of range!

Graet set of shots John, just how far away were you?

Thanks guys...

Very much so Mark, but I was able to keep a shutter speed of over 1/250 so at least mirror slap wasn't a problem  ;D

I think they probably did Brian

Richard, I'm not really sure, probably 200-300 yards I guesstimate... twas pretty much the other side of the lake, looking diagonally along it's length. (except for the Swan which was only about 100ft away

You've done a  great job, John. Is that scope you used a straight one ?  I had an angled one and it was absolutely demoralising trying to find the subject  so I gave up ,I think I've mentioned it before. I think digiscoping like this is great but ,as you've found out,it can be a tricky thing to do but you really have done a superb job. I'll google it.

Is this it ?  http://www.astromart.com/images/articles/0-999/306-1.jpg   Still looking through the camera viewfinder on an angle though - I really wanted to be able to look in a straight line,much easier to locate the subject. I was using a Coolpix 4500 on an angled scope, drove me nuts, it did Lol. One  prof. photographer in a magazine advised using a DSLR or a digiscope but not both.

Thanks very much John... That is indeed the beastie... Celestron 80ED. I was using it straight through, I removed the star diagonal (that's shown in the image you have, to give the angle) and replaced it with a 50mm extention tube, then used the MaxDSLR connector I use on Deepsky and Lunar photography... in fact this was what I use for single frame shots of the moon. I can't find an image to show you, I'll try and get one at some point.

Cheers,John. Maybe one day I'll give it another go and by then they'll have sorted out a system specifically designed for digiscoping -t here's no hint of it in  your photos,I have to say but generally a great deal of light is lost.

Here you go John

(http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg118/johns_bucketofphotos/astro/telescope/PICT0640800.jpg)

I don't think what I'm doing here is technically digiscoping though. I thought that involved using Afocal or ep projection. Here I'm using my C80ED as a 600mm prime lens. I didn't put the TC in for this image.

Well done John - love the Great Crested Grebes.