“The Maverick Astrophotographer”
Low Budget Astrophotography With the Cell Phone Camera
Note: To see all my astrophotography-related posts, click here or on the Astrophotography link on the sidebar.
For years I’ve dreamed of taking my own photos of the Moon, planets, and other celestial objects, but as much as I’d love to have some of the fine astroimaging gear available from places like Orion Telescopes, my current financial realities just don’t allow it.
Rather than mope or daydream, I’ve decided to see what I can do with what I already have. Early this year I obtained my first ever digital camera of any kind, which is the one built into my new cell phone.
The LG VX8360 is a fairly modest phone by today’s standards, but it has more features than I know what to do with, and I’ve been very pleased with the photo quality. I’ve been teaching myself the fine art of pointing the camera into my telescope eyepiece with a steady hand, and I’m setting up this page to share and chronicle my most successful efforts.
Here are my three main astronomical instruments. The largest is my rugged, weathered, but trusty homebuilt Newtonian reflector, ingeniously built by my Father and me (but mostly by Dad) in 1979 when I was a teen. It has an eight inch objective mirror with a focal length of 64 inches. I’m finding it to be my most effective telescope for astrophotography.
Next is my Meade refractor, whose objective lens is 60 millimeters with 700mm focal length. I bought it at a WalMart in 2007, and have overall been quite pleased with it, though it works best with better eyepieces than the ones that came with it. It weighs only five pounds, a bit more portable than the big scope, which weighs 95 pounds.
Lastly, on the ladder you’ll see my Bushnell 7×35 binoculars, which look like they were probably made in the 1970s. I found them at a garage sale in 2009 for $6, and have been very pleased with them.
To start us off, here is one of my favorites so far, the waning gibbous Moon at 5:17 AM CDT, June 30, 2010:
I used the 8″ Reflector with a 25mm eyepiece.
General Information:
Most of my observations are from my backyard in Alexandria, Minnesota, which is 45 degrees and 53 minutes North, 95 degrees and 22 minutes West. I’m not going to give you the seconds of arc, since that would bring anyone within 100 feet of our exact location, and we value our privacy. I give my observation times according to local time. To obtain the Universal time, add 6 hours to Central Standard Time (CST), or 5 hours to Central Daylight Time (CDT).
A few links of interest:
My Astrophotography-related posts
Someone else’s cell phone astrophotography page.
An excellent cell phone camera image of the Moon, with links to many other amateur photos taken with Celestron telescopes.
Christopher Go, a highly proficient amateur who has made some significant discoveries and taken some amazing astroimages.
Anthony Wesley, another of the same stature as Christopher Go.
Journey to the Stars, Upbeat blog from enthusiastic amateur Raven Yu, with lots of astronomy news, images, art, and more.
Two more interesting and informative blogs by amateur astronomers and astrophotographers: BecauseTheNight and Elias Jordan. Mr. Jordan is doing some impressive work at a young age.
Philipp Salzgeber, many fine images of celestial and atmospheric phenomena.
The Transient Sky, blog by a professional astronomer who also observes “for the fun of it” and posts about current events in the ever-changing sky. Basically he does everything I do, and more, with much more sophisticated equipment and a larger knowledge base.
Lynch and the Stars, Mike Lynch, a well-known Minnesota amateur astronomer.
Sky and Telescope Magazine, a great site for keeping up with the hobby.
SkyView Cafe, my favorite desktop planetarium site, great for finding what is in the sky at any given time, at your location or anywhere on Earth.
JPL Solar System Simulator. I used it to see where planets will appear against the starry background at any given time. UPDATE: They seem to have taken it down. Bummer. It was a great resource for finding Uranus and Neptune especially. If I find something like it I’ll link to it here. UPDATED UPDATE: It’s back! Here it is: JPL Solar System Simulator
Glacial Lakes Astronomers and Stargazers Society, an astronomy club in my area, though I haven’t yet had the privilege of attending a meeting. They use a great dark sky location at a state park.
You got very nice images
It’s awesome to know that you made your instruments.
Thank you very much! I feel good about getting results like this with the equipment I already have, and particularly with the homebuilt reflector that my father helped me build, especially since he died a few years ago.
Do you mind if I link your blog to my site? Thanks
Please do, I’d be honored! I was hoping to do the same with your site, & update my Astrophotography page to include your link below Christopher Go’s (the Philippines must be a great place for astronomy!). Thanks again for stopping by!
Oh, Thank you for linking my site as well
Christopher Go is indeed a passionate amateur astronomer. Met him several times during astronomy events and collaborations.
Clear skies!
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