A few nights ago I did a bit of fixed-tripod astrophotography to attempt to capture the conjunction of Venus and the Pleiades. I had to work pretty hard to salvage the conjunction photo but wasn't all that pleased with the results. Since I had a decent clock-drive sitting mostly unused, I decided to mate my camera to that and see what I could get. Not a pioneering venture, to be sure, but I've actually never piggybacked a camera to a telescope before! A quick trip to the local Ace Hardware store produced the stainless steel quarter-inch screw and a pair of rubber automotive washers I'd need to mate the telephoto lens tripod mount to the telescope's dove-tail mounting bar. Shortly after dark on this clear but full Moon-lit night, I toted the Orion SkyView Pro tripod and mount out to the sidewalk. After a rough alignment with Polaris, I attached the camera rig to the mount and did 10 exposures: about five each of Orion's Sword and the Pleiades star cluster -- both in the twilight western sky. I'll definitely need to use the DSLR's advanced feature that allows its view finder mirror to flip up before beginning exposure -- several shots were ruined by vibration. Focus was a bit more of an issue than I expected. Tracking? Well, I expected it to not be perfect but it appeared good enough for exposures of up to 15 seconds. Given all that, I'll share my results here. I know they're not very good but I also know that, using this same camera gear with better mount and alignment, I'll be getting some very nice images of the stars in the not-too-distant future!
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