<p>So I got myself an equatorial mounted mirror telescope, &quot;bluetek&quot; import from China. Seemed the most reasonable thing I could find in Brazil. I was able to set up the finder pretty well and have it fairly OK directed. I saw Jupiter near Orion and said my hails to Sirius. However, I would like to photograph what I see and here I am thoroughly confused. In my young years we had film cameras, SLR, and we would keep them in long exposure and then if I had some sort of clock driven tracker I could make pictures. Now with digital I have no clue how to even spot the object, because no more SLR, you have to see the object on your screen but how can you if you need long exposure to get to see anything? In principle I have used a cellphone camera in long exposure mode and could get something random, but I cannot target an object unless I first use the normal ocular and then somehow plop the camera on, hoping the wiggle will not put everything out of center, and worse. How do I get that right?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-01T15:19:41.367Z
You can still use a digital SLR if that helps.  While a long exposures is required for fine details, a short exposure at high gain/ISO is enough to see most objects for positioning.  Most people use a goto scope and plate solver for finding objects today.
Greg Miller
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-11-02T02:05:03.957Z
I recommend you also ask this question over on Cloudy Nights' beginning deep sky imaging forum https://www.cloudynights.com/forum/80-beginning-deep-sky-imaging/
Also have a read of Roger Clark's site https://clarkvision.com/articles/astrophotography-made-simple/
Aaron F
<telescope><photography><tracker>
Telescope newbie is confused about how to photograph
Gunther Schadow
# Telescope newbie is confused about how to photograph

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-11-01)

So I got myself an equatorial mounted mirror telescope, "bluetek" import from China. Seemed the most reasonable thing I could find in Brazil. I was able to set up the finder pretty well and have it fairly OK directed. I saw Jupiter near Orion and said my hails to Sirius. However, I would like to photograph what I see and here I am thoroughly confused. In my young years we had film cameras, SLR, and we would keep them in long exposure and then if I had some sort of clock driven tracker I could make pictures. Now with digital I have no clue how to even spot the object, because no more SLR, you have to see the object on your screen but how can you if you need long exposure to get to see anything? In principle I have used a cellphone camera in long exposure mode and could get something random, but I cannot target an object unless I first use the normal ocular and then somehow plop the camera on, hoping the wiggle will not put everything out of center, and worse. How do I get that right?

**Tags:** telescope, photography, tracker

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: You can still use a digital SLR if that helps.  While a long exposures is required for fine details, a short exposure at high gain/ISO is enough to see most objects for positioning.  Most people use a goto scope and plate solver for finding objects today.  
> **username_2**: I recommend you also ask this question over on Cloudy Nights' beginning deep sky imaging forum https://www.cloudynights.com/forum/80-beginning-deep-sky-imaging/ Also have a read of Roger Clark's site https://clarkvision.com/articles/astrophotography-made-simple/  

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## 0 answers

