Newcomer to this game

posted by fergc, Sep 14, 2006 5:07 PM — 1 comments

Three weeks ago I went on a trip to Crete ostensibly to do some astronomical observing. I've allways wanted to get into astrophotography but buying a digital CCD camera just for the few times I get out to the dark skies seemed like an unjustifiable expense. Now there are these new cheapish SLR digital cameras with 8Mps like Canon 30D and the E500 which I finally decided on popping up all over the place. I had to buy an adaptor to link it to my scope which cost 100 euros! "OK, I'll spring for that." I thought but then I discovered that the same adaptor converts my old OM1 lenses line the 80-200 zoom I have, to the E500. The old lens, a Tamrom has much better colour than the new lenses that came with the camera.
The adaptor fits onto another adaptor to go onto the telescope and I can put a multiplier in between them. I got some nice shots of the moon and Andromeda.
I would like to see a catagory for astrophotography.
Anyway, back to my trip to Crete. I spent a lot of time in monasetries and lovely villages with waterfalls and mountains. I snapped away over 1000 shots which I narrowed down to about 250 nice frames. The top ten or so I will upload to SXC. I am not a photographer but a musician and composer. Recently I have been looking for artwork for my new albumcover and started to surf around sites like SXC. I really appreciate now, after dipping my bigtoe in the water what you guys do all day every day!
Cheers, Ferg.