Meade model 2080

[garyi]

Hello all I have scored a Meade model 2080 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain with a meade 25 mm lens plus a 2X barlow lens and a Plossl 40mm lens.

I am totally chuffed because it looks big and important and it has been given to me for nowt, yea!

But of course I don't have a clue what I am doing. to begin with I see myself pointing it at the moon, but what I would like to do is get a picture of my results.

I have a Nikon D50 and no idea what I am doing. Is there like a Nikon mount adaptor thing to plug onto this telescope to allow me to get a shot? Or am I in a world of hope?

[Mark43]

Wow thats a beast isn't it..........lucky you.

I'm sure there must be an adaptor for it

Try chatting to these people about it

www.acecameras.co.uk
www.sherwoods-photo.co.uk
http://www.telescopehouse.co.uk
www.warehouseexpress.com

They all deal in Meade scopes and may be able to answer your questions

[Beryl]

Originally Posted by garyi

Hello all I have scored a Meade model 2080 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain with a meade 25 mm lens plus a 2X barlow lens and a Plossl 40mm lens.

I am totally chuffed because it looks big and important and it has been given to me for nowt, yea!

But of course I don't have a clue what I am doing. to begin with I see myself pointing it at the moon, but what I would like to do is get a picture of my results.

I have a Nikon D50 and no idea what I am doing. Is there like a Nikon mount adaptor thing to plug onto this telescope to allow me to get a shot? Or am I in a world of hope?

All I can say is fantastic .
Jupiter is the bright star in the south east sky from about midnight, take a look , it's awsome and you can see it's 4 moons if they are not occulting with the planet, and it's breath taking when one of the moons comes out from behind the planet

[eeyore]

Maybe these folks would be able to help http://www.scopetronix.com/otherdigcam.htm

[Karlos78]

Hi, nice piece of kit excuse me while I wipe the drool from my mouth . If you want to use you D50 there are a number of options available ( See below), however you will have to learn to align the scope to counter the Earths rotation, until you accurately do this you are very limited in terms of astrophotography:

1) Attached the camera using a t mount directly to the rear of the scope (prime focal) or the eyepiece (afocal). Both will give you stunning results.

2) Piggy back the camera on top of the scope, this method is often advised for beginners something I'm trying at the moment basically using the scope to auto guide for very long exposures, on a 18mm lens you will achieve breath taking views of the Milky way etc (I think but not sure on the SCT's some manual re-alignment might be necessary, I know on my Meade etx an illuminated eyepiece can help achieve this).

3) Scrap the D50. If you have a compact digital hold this up to the eyepiece. This will give you great shots of the moon; check out my moon pics as an example. Set the camera to macro, infinity focus, wide aperture and manual white balance. This way you can get a fairly high shutter speed to counter the Earths rotation.

4) The most expensive option, buy a dedicated CCD imager. These little beauties are the ultimate imaging tool for the astrophotographers. Your telescope is design especially for astrophotography so best of luck. There’s 100s of websites out there where you can get more detailed advice.

One other thing to remember DSLR are good for astrophotography, but at long exposures noise and hot pixels become a real problem, there are techniques to reduce the problems but this is a field were film cameras are still highly regarded as a better option. Hope this at least points you in the right direction, good luck and I look forward to seeing your pictures in the Gallery soon!

Karl.

[Aussie]

I have a similar scope (Celestron 9.25" SCT) and because of the focal ratio (F10) it's not much good for deep sky object photography without a focal reducer. Great for planets and precisely why I bought it.

I'm not saying your scope can't or won't do what you want, but there are many factors to consider if you want to head down the DSO astrophotography road.

Precise polar alignment of the scope/mount is the main hurdle.

Planet photography can be easily accomplished with a fairly cheap webcam ie: philips 840K toucam pro or the latest version: 900nc and a laptop for capturing on. Again, good polar alignment is a factor here too. I gather the scope is motorized..

But after saying all that you should be able to get some good moon shots by just hand holding your camera up to the eyepiece and firing away! (focus is the hardest bit here)

Good luck with it all