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G1 on a telescope

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Things are a bit slow here for a gear head, so I though that I would try to liven things up by mounting my G1 on a telescope. I ordered a 2" to four-thirds telescope adapter, and connected it to the camera with a four-thirds to micro four thirds adapter.

The G1 has several advantages in this application - primarily the 10x live view focus - focus is the most difficult issue to solve with a telescope (in astro applications there is software available that solves the problem by analyzing star images, but that doesn't work in terrestrial applications). It's also light, and relatively vibration free.

I mounted the camera on an Astro-Physics Traveler, which has an aperture of 105 mm and a focal length of 610 mm for a focal ratio of f6.0.

Here's a sample:


View attachment 16102

100%-rez crop:

View attachment 16103


In LR I increased contrast and fussed with the color balance, and applied the same minimal sharpening that I use with Leica files.

This seems promising - I've got a few small bits on order that will let me put the telescope on a robust Alt Az mount - the above are on a ball head which doesn't work that well with a telescope. I'll post more as I get it put together. With the Alt Az mount it should be fairly easy to shoot stitches, permitting larger file sizes and prints.
 

scho

Well-known member
Things are a bit slow here for a gear head, so I though that I would try to liven things up by mounting my G1 on a telescope. I ordered a 2" to four-thirds telescope adapter, and connected it to the camera with a four-thirds to micro four thirds adapter.

The G1 has several advantages in this application - primarily the 10x live view focus - focus is the most difficult issue to solve with a telescope (in astro applications there is software available that solves the problem by analyzing star images, but that doesn't work in terrestrial applications). It's also light, and relatively vibration free.

I mounted the camera on an Astro-Physics Traveler, which has an aperture of 105 mm and a focal length of 610 mm for a focal ratio of f6.0.

Here's a sample:


View attachment 16102

100%-rez crop:

View attachment 16103


In LR I increased contrast and fussed with the color balance, and applied the same minimal sharpening that I use with Leica files.

This seems promising - I've got a few small bits on order that will let me put the telescope on a robust Alt Az mount - the above are on a ball head which doesn't work that well with a telescope. I'll post more as I get it put together. With the Alt Az mount it should be fairly easy to shoot stitches, permitting larger file sizes and prints.
Woody, Seems like an excellent way to get large, high res files for making big landscape prints with fine detail. Looking forward to seeing your results with this setup.

Regards,
Carl
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
I've had some time to explore this topic a bit further.

Here's my red G-1 with a 2" telescope adapter. Second image is the G1 mounted on an Astro-Physics 130 mm f6 refractor. The solar, landscape and macro images below are with an Astro-Physics 1.8x barlow, which makes the effective focal length 1400 mm, the equivalent of a 2800 mm telephoto on a 35 mm camera.

View attachment 17043


View attachment 17044
 
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Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Finally, the telescope set up for "'white light" solar observation with the camera mounted on a hershel wedge; and a view of the sun. The sun is very quiet now - we're in a low point in the sunspot cycle - but a plage and convection cells are clearly visible.

View attachment 17050

View attachment 17051
 
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Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
The point?

The G1 works superbly on a telescope because of its light weight and ease of focus. I've tried this with a Canon 1DsII and a 5D with much, much poorer results because it's very hard to achieve accurate focus on a ground glass.

The images of the telescope were taken with an M8 without an IR blocking filter - the dark bits on the telescope, the barlow and the adapter are actually black, not dark magenta.

I'll try some easy astro objects tonight, and some H-alpha solar images tomorrow.
 
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Don Libby

Well-known member
Woody

Great topic and wonderful images. Reminds me of when I tried the same thing w/a 1Ds II; I agree too heavy it difficult to get a goo capture while having the feeling of an anchor at one end of the lens.

Never shot the sun. Very impressive.

Don
 

scho

Well-known member
Woody, Nice set-up and fantastic resolution. Have you tried any stitched landscapes yet?

Carl
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
I promised astro images but seeing here was so-so last night and the alt-az mount I'm using really isn't robust enough for astro imaging.

So . . . that's all from me on this topic.

I hope others try this and post. All you need is a small telescope and a G1.

Google "telescope camera adapter" and you'll find what you need to connect the camera to the telescope.

Next I go to work on trying to develop a more compact setup that I can take on the road.

I misspelled "herschel wedge" in one of the posts above.
 
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