2
$\begingroup$

We recently bought a Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 130AZ for our children and we like to take some pictures of what we are seeing through the telescope. We know that's a beginner telescope and not really made for astrophotography, but we wonder if it's possible to attach our Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ2000 camera to the eyepiece somehow. The camera can take a lenshood and I wonder if it's possible to put this end to the eyepiece somehow (to hold it still during some seconds of exposure).

Any advice on this would be awesome and additionally recommondations for useful equipment like a barlow lens or filter for viewing the sun, moon and planets would be nice.

Improve this question
$\endgroup$

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2
$\begingroup$

Yes, this is possible. Fist you need an adapter from the lens mount of the Panasonic Lumix DMC to T2 (something like this: TS-Optics-T2-Adapterring-fuer-Micro-Four-Thirds-Bajonett).

For eyepiece projection you then need an adapter where you can insert your eyepiece and connect the T2 mount from the other adapter (something like this: TS-Optics Adapter for Eyepiece Projection and Focal Photography)

I am not aware of a solution for 2" eyepieces, but this should work fine for 1.25". You can also connect the camera directly to the telescope without an eyepiece, in which case the telescope works like a camera lens of focal length f=650mm, without the additional magnification of the eyepiece.

A Barlow lens is nice for observations of targets which require more magnification as for example planets, but it also reduces the image quality slightly. There are entry level Barlow lenses (with 2x, 2.5x, 3x magntification) from Baader or Celestron and more high quality products like the TeleVue Powermate series.

For solar filters you have to be very careful, especially with children. Always make sure that it is secure to look through the eyepiece and that the filter won't move. You can either see the sun through a foil filter similiar to eclipse goggles (like this: Baader Solar filter tube: 100-140 mm) or at specific emission line wavelengths like H-alpha. This however is really expensive for such large apertures that I would not recommend it with beginner telescope.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
2
  • $\begingroup$ I'm not sure this T2 adapter ring fits to this camera which has no option of changing objective lenses, it just has the possibility to attach a lenshood, but I asked the vendor in your linked site if they know better. Will report back once I've gotten an answer. I accept your answer anyways as for the other good recommondations! $\endgroup$
    – Scoregraphic
    Dec 6, 2022 at 13:42
  • $\begingroup$ The vendor says it's not possible and even if there would be an adapter, they wouldn't recommend as the force on the camera objective lens could damage the camera $\endgroup$
    – Scoregraphic
    Dec 7, 2022 at 16:06

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .