Shooting the moon with 55-300 + 1.7x

[Dr_who]

What did you use, Dr Who? - for camera I used a pentax K10D. Camera settings for that particular image was ISO 400, Shutter Speed 1/125 sec. I did do one at ISO 200 at I believe 1/30th a sec and lok to be just about the same quality. Maybe slightly more detail but more noise at the ISO 400.

As for the glass infront of the camera I used a 7" Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope on my balcony. There is a street lamp in the balcony almost directly in front on it too which doesn't help but the moon is extremly bright so it came out ok. Stats on the telescope is F15 with a focal length of 2700mm.

That might be with the eye piece setup I don't know if it changes with the camera inserted in there but if it does its neglegable. Telescope does have a tracking motor but was not a open area to triangulate its location. That and again the lamp outside the balcony lol. The Moon, least here in Edmonton is a very late night/very early morning riser atm and the sky was turning blue. I had posted some smaller photos in another forum that I'll include here.

the moon looking out my balcony with lovly street lamp post. Jupiter to the lower left as well. I wasn't 100% what it was until I looked at it


not bad for living walkign distance from downtown and sun starting to rise.


Jupiter over exposed on purpose for 1 second to reveal its moons.

[DanielT74]

Forgive my ignorance, but how do you attach the telescope to the K10D? Is there an adaptor or do you just look through the viewfinder and focus it somehow?

[Rodney9]

Here is my moon shot, taken early morning yesterday with a Sigma 70-300mm F4-5.6 APO DG and 2x teleconveter.

[Dr_who]

DanielT74 - Yes there is a adapter you can use to basically make the telescope the lens. There are a couple different ones depending on the telescope and the setup, but the one I use is a T-Ring Adapter. I don't know if this is the same brand as mine but heres a link to one. Zhumell T-Ring for Pentax K Mount Cameras - Telescope Accessories at Telescopes

I just got mine in a used parts bin at a local shop. They can be used for a couple things that have that size thread to screw onto. Anyways there is another piece that screws onto the tring and then you can just place the camera into the same place you'd stick in a eye piece or in the case of my telescope you can unscrew the eye piece assembly all together and screw the t-ring directly to the telescope. I can take a picture of the setup if you wish.


Rodney here is my confusion... I wasn't sure about the orintation of the picture, but I thought I had mine correct until I saw your picture. Is your photo upside down? I suppose upside down isn't relative to a object in space and I am much farther north here in Canada.

[DanielT74]

Thanks, Dr Who! They are amazing pictures...

As for orientation, Rodney is in Australia that's why the moon in his pictures is orientated the same way as the one in mine.

Cheers!