After a long hiatus, I’m once again making a serious effort at astrophotography. My friend Tim Miller and I have been sharing a 12-inch Meade LX 200 for more than a dozen years now, and we’ve tried various photographic methods in the past with varying success, always knowing we didn’t quite have the right equipment. Now, however, I’m have three friends, each with a digital SLR of some kind, and each of whom is happy to attach it to the back of our telescope to see what kind of pictures we get. Everyone involved has a lot to learn about the process, and Tim and I are grateful for the chance to sample a small handful of cameras before investing in our own.
Tonight I was able to borrow a Nikon D60 from Brad Ditzell for our first effort. This is the first clear night since the beginning of the year that wasn’t unbearably cold, and the snow pack has melted significantly this week. We set up the scope in Tim’s back yard in suburban Dayton, Ohio, and aimed for the most obvious late winter target, the Orion Nebula. The D60 was attached to the scope via the appropriate T-ring and Meade camera extender. Controlling the camera was my MacBook Pro running Aperture 3.01 via USB cable.
For those of you not familiar with how this works, the telescope acts as the lens for the camera. Correct polar alignment of the scope is critical for finding and tracking the target object. The scope first has to be leveled using the bubble level built into the wedge. Then the scope’s computer has a built-in routine for polar alignment, where we set it to an initial position, center Polaris mechanically in an eyepiece with crosshairs using dials on the wedge, and let the scope slew to a bright star near the celestial equator. We center the star in the crosshairs and register its position with the scope. Based on those two points, the scope’s computer can point to any other coordinate in the sky pretty accurately. There are a lot of factors that go into accurate slewing and tracking, and the fact that our scope sits on a tripod rather than a permanent pier of some kind probably introduces the greatest amount of error. That being said, tonight’s alignment was about as good as we’ve been able to do in quite some time, and tracking was good enough that we didn’t experience any star trails.
We slewed the scope to M42 (the Orion Nebula, mentioned before). Because the objects we’re attempting to photograph are usually comparatively small or dark, it’s nearly impossible to see them on a camera LCD or in a view finder. The only way to know what the camera can see is to snap a picture. The first several shots were very much out of focus, but after a bit we sharpened things up and we were super excited to see M42 come into focus. In that few minutes, we had already taken better astrophotos through our scope than we had in a dozen years.
We spent a while after that centering M42 in the frame and attempting to improve the focus. Because M42 is a comparatively dim object, exposure times obviously have to be longer than a normal daylight shot. This would bring out color and detail in the nebula, but would make it difficult to judge whether focus was accurate.
After a lot of trial and error over several hours, Tim and I got a picture we thought was pretty good for a first effort. This is M42, the Orion Nebula, taken on the night of March 6, 2010. The camera was set at ISO 800, -5 EV, 10 seconds, AWB, RAW.
I cropped the picture down and rotated it 90 degrees counter-clockwise. You can click it for the full res version.
Overall, not bad for a first effort. 
Tim and I also took some time to point the scope towards Mars, which was high in the sky. We got pictures of an unmistakably round, red Mars, but we got very little detail out of it. Admittedly Mars is not an object with a great deal of detail. You can sometimes see the polar caps and some seasonal markings. Jupiter, Saturn, and even Venus are better planetary targets. I’m not sure if our lack of detail was due to improper focus, incorrect exposure times, or whether we had simply reached the limit of the scope’s resolution. In any case, this is as good as we were able to do:
ISO 400, -5 EV, 1/320 second, AWB, RAW. If you look closely, I think you can see a polar ice cap at the top.
After about four hours, we decided we were cold enough to call it quits. I don’t know when we’ll get another crack at this because the weather forecast for the near future appears to be cloudy. Tim and I are very encouraged by tonight’s results and we’re dedicated to getting better at this. We want to thank Brad for letting us use his camera.
Posted by Aaron Adams 
