Saturn Photos
4 March 2007
The following photos were taken using a SonyDSC-P93 Smart Zoom digital camera outfitted with a Scopetronix digital-T adapter. The adapter allows a telescope eyepiece to be attached to the camera; the eyepiece is then inserted into the telescope focuser allowing you to take photos with the camera attached to the eyepiece. Click on this link to see the Sony camera with Scopetronix adapter.
Here are photos of Saturn made on Sunday night, 4 March 2007. The 12.4mm eyepiece yields 121X with the XT-12. I then used the zoom feature on the camera to zoom in on Saturn. The first photo below was taken with the camera not zoomed; the second photo is zoomed about halfway (1.5X optical zoom) ; the bottom photo is full zoom (3.0X optical zoom) . With this arrangement, I can see Saturn in the camera's LCD screen -- I then focus the object to be photographed (Saturn in this case) and take the photo. Note that the two zoomed-in photos are somewhat fuzzy. I'm still working with the focus.
SonyDSC-P93 Smart Zoom digital camera; Scopetronix
digital-T adapter
Meade 12.4mm Super Plossl eyepiece; Orion XT-12 Dobsonian reflector
telescope;
1,500 mm focal length with 12.4mm eyepiece yields 121X
Some of the fuzziness may be due to the telescope vibrating -- when I press the button on the camera to take the shot, that movement may make the scope "jiggle," thus making the photo fuzzy. Somewhere I have a remote control for this camera -- I'll dig it out and use it to avoid touching the camera while it's attached to the scope.
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