For some time now, I have wanted to try my hand at amateur astrophotography.  I still have my dad's old Empire telescope that is probably as old as I am or close to it, but I had misplaced the eyepieces a while back.  I finally found them a few days ago and I was pretty excited about having a chance to set up the telescope in the back yard and look at the moon.  I looked at some camera/telescope mounting hardware and adapters on the Internet but they are pretty expensive and given the age of the telescope, I have been pretty hesitant to invest in any attachments.  On at least a few web sites, I have read about folks taking some halfway decent pictures by just holding a camera up to the eyepiece and I figured it was worth a try.  So after a long day yesterday, I set up the telescope in the back yard and for about an hour, I gave it my best shot.  It was a relatively clear night and I think the moon was in the waxing gibbous phase.

I used a 40 mm eyepiece with our Kodak EasyShare C875 camera.  The camera is an 8 megapixel camera and I had the best results using the "distant scenery" and "closer than 28 inches" manual settings with the flash turned off.  It's a pretty tricky thing to adjust the telescope focus and the camera to get a sharp, focused picture.  I also learned that it's not possible to smoke a cigar and fiddle with the camera and telescope all at the same time. It requires a steady hand when using the camera's manual settings because the slightest movement results in a blurry photo.  The picture below is the best of approximately 40 attempts between 11 PM and 12 AM last night.  I did sharpen the image in iPhoto a bit which adds some good definition to the craters on the right edge.  I think it's a good first effort and I am hoping to take some better pictures in the future.

**  I changed the orientation of the photo and the lunar phase info with some help from my dad.  Thanks Dad!

J-channel
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