First Quarter Moon

First Quarter Moon

One of my first attempts at astrophotography. This picture was taken using my 9" amateur telescope and a simple non-SLR camera on a tripod looking into the eyepiece; so called eyepiece projection. To get the focus right, I used a trick told to me by Dr. Alan Cousins. First focus a pair of binoculars at infinity (eg. at the Moon). Next, use the binocular to look through the telescope eyepiece at the Moon and adjust the telescope focus till the image is sharp. You now have parellel light coming from the telescope eyepiece and by setting the camera focus at infinity, the image is sharp.

I later upgraded to a SLR camera and took a picture of the Full Moon. Read here to see how the exposure time was calculated.

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