Chapter 3
There is one exception to this general
rule, however. That is prime focus astrophotography done with a video camera,
such as digital eyepiece. With a digital eyepiece in place of a regular eyepiece
you can take incredible images of the Moon, Sun (with appropriate filter) and
planets at the prime focus of your telescope. In fact, you can even do this type
of astrophotography with our SkyWatcher Dobsonians and other alt-azimuth mounted
telescopes.
Digital Eyepieces can be used with virtually any type of telescope because they
take pictures of very short duration and thereby avoid trailing. Consequently,
they work exceptionally well on the bright objects like the moon, sun and
planets. But for this very same reason, they do not work well on dim, deep space
objects, like nebulae. Imaging of dim nebulae requires long exposures with
sensitive cameras and highly accurate tracking.
That is the domain of long-exposure prime
focus astrophotography, which is discussed a bit later (see next page).
Some people have taken outstanding images with video cameras and eyepieces
attached to our Maksutov telescopes. The Maksutov design is particularly well
suited for video imaging due to its longer inherent focal length and excellent
high contrast optics. The Maks are also very portable and that makes travel and
setup a lot easier too.
