Hello everyone, I know many people here take incredible picture with very high quality equipment. Although I do have a nice CPC800, I lack both great photographic gear as well as expertise with it. But a few months ago I started almost as a game to take pictures with my iPhone (after all, it's the camera that is always with you). I wanted to share these few pics with you. These have been retouched with the photoshop app for the iphone. The only thing I did on the computer was resize them before posting. I might post more if you like them. Thanks for checking them out!

We love to see different kinds of astrophotography especially with different equipments.

May I know how you make connection between iphone and telescope. Is it just put her on the eyepiece ?

Ming:

We love to see different kinds of astrophotography especially with different equipments.

May I know how you make connection between iphone and telescope. Is it just put her on the eyepiece ?

Ming,  That's called Afocal photography.  All you need to do if you have a point and shoot or cell phone camera is hold it up to the eyepiece and take a picture.  You're taking a picture of what you see in the eyepiece.

Those are nice pictures coming from a cell phone camera. 

Ming, as Tim says, this is simply a matter of holding the phone up to the eyepiece. There are gadgets that will hold just about any camera in place, but I don't have one. The trickiest part is to match the exit pupil of the eyepiece with the camera lens, which as you know is tiny. I took some of Mars that were almost impossible. One nudge of 1/2mm would misalign the whole thing. I will try to take more and post them here if people are interested.

Love it, love it, love it!   That's good stuff.  Will have to see if my iPhone can do just as good!

jballauer:

Love it, love it, love it!   That's good stuff.  Will have to see if my iPhone can do just as good!

Thanks, You'll probably do much better, especially with a 3GS. I'm using the older 3G...

New pic from a few days ago..

Typically Lunar images are presented in gray scale rather than color, but I do have to say I love the color in that one. It adds character. 

I enjoyed your post.

tkerr:

Typically Lunar images are presented in gray scale rather than color, but I do have to say I love the color in that one. It adds character. 

I have to use everything I've got! Color, contrast, everything... :-) Mars comes out so bright it's pretty useless. And I'm using a neutral filter. I would like to do most planets with the iPhone, that would be something...

 Very cool.  I tried a couple with my iphone, and they turned out terrible.  you must have a very steady hand.  Keep them coming...

 

Paul

Thank you Paul, keep trying I'm sure you'll get great results. I'm waiting a few weeks to get a good shot of Saturn. In the meantime, and since you asked, here's an older one I passed through iPhone photoshop.

 I just had some more time and looked again.  I'm amazed at the sharpness you're getting through a cell phone camera held up to the eye piece.  If you don't mind my asking, what eypieces are you shooting these through?  Is it better to go with greater magnification, or greater field of view?  I think when I tried, it was the 25mm eyepiece, and it was almost impossible to hold the phone steady enough to get anything.

 

Paul

Hello Paul, I'll post an untouched pic soon so that you can get an idea of what I am actually getting from the phone. It is pretty close to what you see here though, since all I use is a bit of the free iphone photoshop app that isn't very powerful. Anyway, I have a CPC800 and I use X-cel eyepieces, I think all the shots except for the big moon were taken with a Barlow 2X and an 8mm deluxe. The moon shot was taken with a 25mm. Thats't it, let me know if this helps. A Here's the original photo without any tweaking:

 Wow, I'm really going to have to try some cell phone pics next time I'm out.  Thanks for sharing the info.

 

Paul