Astrophotography Possibility?

[steve_rasmussen]

I'm thinking of taking a shot of the Andromeda Galaxy with my 600mm at f/4 with 3200 speed film pushed one stop for 20 seconds. Can this be done undriven with this setup or should I resort to a clock drive? Will it expose the film in 20 seconds? Do I have enough magnification for this object? Thanks, SR

[marcelo_p._lima]

Hi Steve,

 

<p>

 

I doubt you will have enough magnification for the Andromeda Galaxy.

In my observational astronomy class, we used a Meade telescope which

magnified the equivalent to around 1000mm (in 35mm photography) and

even then we could barely see the galaxy. I think your best bet for

that kind of astrophotography is to use a telescope and a sky

tracker; there are many sites on the web about this, specifically

with photographers who use the P67. With the tracker you can also use

lower speed film, but you will probably need to expose for a few

hours.

 

<p>

 

Regards,

Marcelo

[steve_rasmussen]

Welcome back Marcelo. Thanks for the suggestion. I will try to

piggyback on a large scope and use slow film and long exposure. BTW,

Andromeda is the most distant object seen by the naked eye. Also,

after some research, I found that its angular size is 6 times that of

the full moon. Visually through a telescope, it looks much smaller. SR

[marcelo_p._lima]

Hi Steve,

 

<p>

 

Hmm...that's intriguing. So maybe I'm confusing Andromeda with some

other object. But if it's angular size is 6x that of the full moon,

shouldn't it cover six times more room on the sky than the full moon?

So the problem with it is that it's much fainter than the moon. This

is where using a telescope proves better; the main purpose of

telescopes is to be light buckets, or photon-collecting lenses, if

you will. Because of their larger diameter, telescopes can "see"

fainter objects than camera lenses. But I'm still curious about

Andromeda's size...

 

<p>

 

regards,

Marcelo

[steve_rasmussen]

Marcelo:

Yes, Andromeda is huge and is six moon diameters in angular size. It

is much larger than our galaxy. My 600mm should be OK for that except

I should probably drive it for best results. SR

[mayorson_kirk]

please let NASA's space telescope lens (which made by Zeiss in certain aspects) to take the photos.