A Serious Lack of Focus
Last night I actually scraped together the energy to get out the ol’ telescope. Jupiter is out early at night, and the weather has finally started being clear at night, and I had never used my new Canon 20D camera with my telescope, so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity.
Something was evidently a little funky in the electronics, because when I turned on the telescope there was this big *BZZAP* sound and sparks kinda flew out of the front of the controller. It made me yell with surprise, which of course was a little embarrassing, given that all the neighbors that were out enjoying Memorial Day barbecues. I was sure the electronics were shot, but surprisingly, everything seemed fine after I turned it on again. I used the telescope for a couple hours after that, so evidently it was just some freak accident. Probably some spider or moth got a bit of a surprise…
The air wasn’t very stable last night, and I couldn’t get the telescope collimated too well because of that. I could make out the major bands, and the Great Red Spot was discernible, but there was still a lot of shimmer. Still, photos would capture enough detail to make it worth my while; my current photos of Jupiter are not even that good!
I set up my camera to do prime-focus photography with the telescope. (That basically means that the telescope operates as the camera’s lens.) Unfortunately, none of my photos turned out very good, because I just didn’t have the focusing down at all! It’s quite challenging to focus a DSLR, and it’s a skill that I still have a lot of room to improve on.
I did some searching on the Internet and found a couple of sites that give some hints:
- Canon BeBit EOS Digital Astrophotography Guide (page 5)
- Canon EOS 300D/350D (Digital Rebel) Astrophotography (the Focusing section)
So, maybe I will try again tonight; who knows! It should be great once I get this nailed down. Just gotta persevere…