Astrophotography

I have been looking for a way to photograph what I am seeing in my telescopes.

I have been taking photos with my iPhone by holding my phone up and lining up the camera but its a pain and it only works on the moon and Sun.

They came out with this adapter for the iPhone and its expensive and I doubt that it will work as the camera isn't made for low light situations which is what you get out of a telescope.

I have tried a webcam from my laptop and had similar results like my iPhone, it has to be held perfectly and its tough to line up and then snap a picture or video.

There is a simple USB Camera that fits in the eyepiece that has low reviews and its the same price as the iPhone adapter - $59 but as I said it has very poor reviews. Here is the eyepiece I am speaking about.

Meade used to make a DSI (Deep Space Imager) camera but no longer does but there were many sold and I have seen some on Ebay and other sites that sell telescope accessories. What I really need is a CCD (Charged Couped Device which is meant for Astrophotography, but these can cost over $400 - $3000+ dollars! Yikes!!

Am I ready for that?? There are software packages that can take your images and overlay them as taking pictures isn't like your normal everyday pictures. You actually have to track your target, and do long exposures.  3 seconds to several minutes to gather as much light as possible. In order to do that you need and expensive camera and a tracking scope that actually stays with the object you are trying to capture.

I have more research to do but I plan on getting into it more in the future and will post as I come across some.