Orion 52186 Things to Do, Using Focal Reducers and Barlow Lenses, Filters, Solar Filter, Moon

why most major astronomical telescopes are on high mountains in thin air, to get above much of the seeing and transparency problems. Also, wind will move your telescope and affect images. Your eyes viewing through an eyepiece can change slightly to compensate for disturbances like these, but the camera cannot. Keep these factors in mind when choosing an observing site for astronomical imaging.

For the best astro-images, we recommend finding a location with dry air, some altitude, and away from city or streetlights. Even a nearby hilltop in the countryside can provide better viewing conditions than many convenient backyard locations.

Using Focal Reducers and Barlow Lenses

Focal reducers serve to decrease the focal length of your telescope. This increases the field of view and image brightness seen by the camera (decreases camera magnification). This can be useful for obtaining images of wider objects, such as the full Moon or a landscape vista.

Barlow lenses, or other tele-extenders, increase the focal length of your tele- scope, which makes the camera field of view narrower (increases camera mag- nification). This is useful for high-power planetary images. Keep in mind that when the focal length is doubled, the image will become four times dimmer, so a longer exposure may be necessary.

(Focal Reducers and Barlow lenses available through Orion, check the catalog or www.OrionTelescopes.com for more information).

Filters

For some types of imaging, you may want to use color filters to bring out subtle details. Any standard Orion 1.25" filter will thread into the front of the DSVC’s barrel. Try using different color filters on a planet to see which filters help best show planetary details.

Neutral-density Moon filters and variable-polarizer filters are useful to reduce the glare from the moon. They can also be used to reduce the glare from Venus.

Solar Filter

Warning: Always use a full aperture solar filter when viewing the sun.

With a properly fitting full-aperture solar filter attached to your telescope, you can use the DSVC to take images of the Sun and the sunspots on its surface.

(Filters available through Orion, check the catalog or www.OrionTelescopes.com for more information).

Flip Mirror

As easy as flipping a switch, the Imaging Flip Mirror enables the astrophotogra- pher to find, center and focus a target visually with a 1.25" telescope eyepiece, then photograph it with a CCD camera. All without swapping out any equipment. It’s a real time saver, making the normally tedious task of focusing with the CCD camera alone easier and quicker.

(Available through Orion, check the catalog or www.OrionTelescopes.com for more information).

Things to Do

Group Viewing

•Show your live view to a group of astronomers at a star party with a TV, projector or laptop/PC.

Internet broadcasting

•Broadcast your live views over the internet using the video capture device and the free Night Skies network service.

Deep Space

•Try your own messier marathon to see how many of the messier objects you can see in one evening

•Do you know your doubles? image double stars

Moon

•Image and identify the craters and mares.

•Image the different phases from New moon to Full Moon

•Image the detail at the terminator

•Create a moon mosaic using multiple lower resolution images to create one high resolution image

Solar System

•Take a movie of the position of the great red spot of Jupiter during the Gas Giant’s <10 hour day.

•Image Jupiter’s moons and their shadows as they transit across the Gas Giant

•Follow in Galileo’s footsteps by Imaging the different phases of Venus

•Create a time lapse movie of a distant planet moving at a different rate than the background stars

•Using a full aperture Solar Filter to image sunspots

•Capture rare astronomical events such as Venus or Mercury transiting our nearest star

•Create a movie of the International space station as it transits across the Sun

•Automatically detect and capture a movie of a meteor and automatically send image/s via email or a movie via FTP to a website

•Create a time lapse movie of an asteroid or comet moving at a different rate than the background stars

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