Vintage telescope for astrophotography?
So i have a telescope, its a Towa Astronomical Telescope with:
D= 60mm
F= 700m
model: no. 3111-B
it was made in Japan
i very recently got a DSLR (a Nikon D3100 to be exact) for my B-day. I don't have a T-Mount or a T-Adapter, YET, but my question is: is the telescope i have at all sufficient for astrophotography? Will it produce any decent pictures?
Most likely, no. You need an equatorial mount that can track the object you want to photograph.
You would be ahead to start simple and do star trails. Put the camera on a tripod and leave the shutter open for a long period of time. This gets you started with how the camera works for doing long exposures.
You may need to pick up a shutter release so that the camera shutter can stay open more than 30 seconds -
http://www.amazon.com/...B003XN4XJU
http://www.pixelhk.com/Proshow.aspx?id=76
The next you can try is a simple platform called a barn door tracker (also known as a Scotch mount). This allows for easy tracking of wide field sky objects (like constellations) and allows to to hone your skills -
http://www.astropix.com/BGDA/SAMPLE2/SAMPLE2.HTM
Now, you can start looking at a better telescope system to take pictures with. There are lots of options and no one system works best. But here's a few more links to browse -
http://www.astropix.com/
http://starizona.com/acb/ccd/ccd.aspx
http://www.telescope.com/...aphy/4.uts
That is a bit small, not much more than a toy.
Additional info if taking pic of sun i used solar film from agena astro off ebay or thousand oaks may have a premade unit to suit your scope never point at sun without safe solar filter adjust your speed and iso as needed till u get clear image. Dont use those silly vintage sun filters their dangerous, Never point directly at sun without solar safe filter on lens or scope SAFETY FIRST.
Additional information. If take photo of sun with your nikon and telescope or lens get solar safe filter, you can get premade versions online or from astronomy store. Never look directly at sun without solar filter on front of lens