First Light

As I mentioned in my earlier posts I got back into observing about 5 months ago which means I have quite a lot to catch up on, particularly from an astrophotography point of view.

My first observing session was on 1st November 2009 which happened to be a nearly full moon. I didn't have my webcam back then so had do make do with what was available. I'd seen some impressive results from people doing afocal astrophotography so I thought I'd have a go with my point-and-shoot Olympus digital camera.

For those who don't know, afocal astrophotography is simply holding a camera up to the eyepiece and taking a picture.

I started with a 32mm eyepiece so that I could get the whole of the moon in the field of view. I also used a moon filter to reduce the glare.

After a few minutes of messing around it was very easy to get some decent shots. The pick of the bunch was probably this one...



For something so easy it was hugely satisfying to produce such good results. I tried increasing the magnification but found it much more difficult to align the camera at the eyepiece. Also the photos of smaller sections of the moon were nowhere near as impressive as getting the full moon into the field of view.

So that was my first step into astrophotography. A very small and simple step but one that left me wanting more.