Galileo's Camera

For anyone who wants to get in to astrophotography, one of the obvious first questions is "How do I connect my camera to the telescope?". Well Celestron has an instructional video on how to. The 10min video covers all types of mounting/connecting methods like A-focal (mostly used with point and shoot cams), prime focus (used with DSLRs), web cam astrophotography, CCD based photography and  piggybacking. Of course, it is a promotional video from Celestron, so obviously they promote Celestron products, but it is a good start :)

Full Moon Shot using Canon 550D with a 75-300mm camera. No telescope is used. Lunar cycles must've been one of the earliest cycles that have been identified by humans. In this series, we will be covering its entire change of phases with 27 photographs, one for each day between a full lunar cycle. The photograph shown here is taken using a Canon 550D with a 75-300mm telephoto lens. Although the moon is the brightest on the full moon, it is not a great phase for astrophotography. When the moon is waxing or waning, the shadows on the ridges accent the actual shape of the ridge. However, when the entire moon is (reasonably) uniformly illuminated, all you can see are the larger craters and seas. In the photo below, you can see the major craters and seas of the moon marked on the same image as above: Moon - Major Crates and Seas

Since a very young age, I have been interested in astronomy. When I was around 12, I built a telescope made out of a lens of my father's spectacles and an eye piece from a toy binocular. If I recall properly, it had a magnification power of x12 and I managed to see three of the four Galilean Moons of Jupiter. About a decade and a quarter later, I started getting interested in photography. I am now on my second camera and the first DSLR and pretty  much all of my "stuff" can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/115925656791968631335 . Around the same time, I got my hands on my first "proper" telescope. And in pretty much no time, I was wondering if I could put my two hobbies together. This blog, is an amateur attempt on astrophotography. For how long I would continue this and to what depth, I do not know right now, but it is very possible that I would do it for a long time, even with astronomical pauses between posts. :)