Weasner's HP Astrophotography Page

ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY WITH HP DIGITAL CAMERAS

Last updated: 16 February 2003

This page documents HP digital cameras comments, tips, and photos. Search the site for "HP" for other items about the HP digital cameras. Contributions welcome.

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Subject:	Digital Camera Adapter
Sent:	Thursday, January 24, 2002 19:05:36
From:	garth@doetzel.com (Garth)
I just picked up a Digital Camera Adapter That I just seen on your
webpage. The problem I found was it worked as you said yours did in the
daylight but my little HP 315s screen shows no image when it is dark (I
guess it needs light before a image shows) so it is imposable to line
up. I guess it is a HP glitch, works in the day though...

Garth

Subject:	digital photo
Sent:	Thursday, February 28, 2002 14:42:37
From:	reino.mattson@in.ngb.army.mil (Mattson, Reino L CPT)
This is the first attempt of taking a digital photo through the eyepiece
of my ETX 90EC.  I used an HP 618 camera.

Subject:	Tiffen MegaPlus Lens Adapter for HP PhotoSmart 618 (37mm thread)
Sent:	Sunday, October 6, 2002 11:29:56
From:	HacheyP@aol.com
I want to use my HP PhotoSmart 618 Digital Camera with my ETX125 and I
would like to use the Meade Camera Adapter.  Since I have no experience
with the Meade adapter I don't know if buying the accesory below would
be of any help..  Would the fact that it would provide a 37 mm thread
help in any way?  Check out:

http://www.tiffen.com/digital_hpproducts.htm

Tiffen MegaPlus Lens Adapter for HP PhotoSmart 618 (37mm thread)	

Thanks - Paul Hachey

Mike here: The Meade Camera Adapter uses a standard T-Mount. You need a T-Ring that would supply that.

Subject:	ETX60AT AstroPhotography Help
Sent:	Sunday, October 20, 2002 20:50:31
From:	robeng@ix.netcom.com (Robert Salhaney)
I thought I would send this email to see if anyone else has had an
experience similar or the same as I.  I have an ETX60AT with a Hewlett
Packard 315 digital camera attached via a Digi-T adapter.  The camera
does not allow for altering the duration of the photo.  It is a one
second maximum exposure.  Shooting the moon without filter creates a
washed-out moon when viewing photos on computer screen.  Moon filter,
red, green, blue, deep sky, and even tried OIII (once stacked with the
Deep Sky filter), do not work much in filtering down light. The blue
filter gave a little detail (with and without a 2x Barlow).  However,
the red filter stacked with a green filter gave the best results
regarding some detail, but still not razor sharp picture.

Maybe the camera cannot handle the bright full moon subject matter with
the ETX. I say this, because when I use the same setup with my 6 inch
Dob, with and without Barlow or moon filter, I get excellent results,
during half moon.  Have not tried camera setup with Dob during full moon
yet.  So, maybe full moon is "killing pixels" in camera.

I would like to hear from anyone, especially those with a ETX60/70AT and
a HP315 camera.

Love your web site.  Have read it for over a year now.  The postings
here gave me all the info. I needed before I bought the little ETX last
year.  You and everyone else continue to give me encouragement and new
ideas.  I love the little ETX.  It has always tracked perfectly upon a
good level setup.  It picked up the Dumbell nebula a few weeks ago in my
backyard which is magnitude 5.5 skies at best.  It did extremely well in
August up north with 7.0 naked eye - magnitude skies.  The little ETX
picked up a 8.8 mag star just before a glorious Aurora that covered over
180 degrees of the sky for an hour or more.

Thanks again,

Robert in Detroit

Mike here: If you camera takes good photos in the daytime (of terrestrial objects) it should be able to take shots of the Moon. You don't want a maximum exposure of 1 second but something a lot shorter. If you can adjust the exposure to shorten it or to reduce the camera's aperture setting, you should be able to get better results.

Subject:	ETX Comments
Sent:	Saturday, November 16, 2002 9:14:54
From:	cwinscott@msn.com (CAROL WINSCOTT)
The attached photos were obtained with a HP digital camera held up to
the eyepiece of my ETX-90 by hand.

Bill Winscott
San Antonio, TX

Start of today's update

Subject:	moon photo
Sent:	Saturday, February 15, 2003 13:23:46
From:	reltran@comcast.net
Here's a moon photo I took about 1 year ago through my ETX-60 with a HP
Photosmart 315 digital camera held up to a 9mm eyepiece with barlow and 
in auto mode.Some touching up in photoshop.thanks.
                                                     Jeremy

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