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Actual picture of the moon with my NEX3 and Telescope

Actual picture of the moon with my NEX3 and Telescope March 2013

Recently I purchased a Celstron 127SLT Telescope and also purchased what is called a T-Adapter for my Sony NEX 3 Camera. I was trying to figure out how to do Astrophotography with it –  and after some serious Internet searching, I was able to fine 1 line that said how to get the adapter to work with the camera.  Hopefully by publishing this post, I can save some search and frustration efforts for other people.

Here is a picture of the Celestron 127SLT telescope that I purchased.  I chose this one based on personal feedback from people I communicate with on Twitter as well as I felt thees options would help me actually USE this telescope:

  • Maksutov-Cassegrain, which as I understand makes it more suitable for lunar and planetary viewing
  • Fully Computerized so it would be easier to find planets / stars
  • 127mm Aperture (5”)

Celestron_nexstar_127_slt

 

OK, now that you know what type of Telescope I purchased, lets talk about what this post is really about –  Astrophotography and saving other Sony NEX owners the joy of trying to figure out how to do it!

First, you will need a few things.  Besides a Sony NEX Camera, you will need two things:

T2 T Telescope Mount Lens

IMG_0332 (Small)

Celestron 93625 Universal 1.25” Camera T-Adapter

IMG_0329 (Small)

Once you have those two items, you will need carefully screw them together.  The threads are very fine and can be a challenge, take your time.  I had a hard time threading them together, I put them down and walked away for a minute.  Came back, no problem.  Once you have them mated, I would not “un-mate” them, ever.

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Now that they are together, you need to mount them to your Sony NEX camera. The red dot on the NEX Adapter aligns with the WHITE dot on the Camera.

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Once you have them mounted, the kit should look like this:

IMG_0337 (Small)

Now that the camera lens is mounted, we need to make a change to the camera settings.

The reason we need to make some changes to the camera is because on a normal Sony NEX lens, is has some type of chip that tells the camera what is attached

IMG_0335 (Small)

In the adapter, that part is missing as there is no intelligence in the lens

IMG_0333 (Small)

So, what we need to do is the following –  from the menu, select Setup

IMG_0339 (Small)

Then scroll down until you find “ Release w/o Lens”

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And Enable that.  This will allow the shutter to operate when it does not sense a lense.

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If you do not do that, this is the error you will receive when you try to take a picture;

IMG_0347 (Small)

Now that you have that done, the next thing I recommend that you do is set a self-timer delay.

If you have a remote to take a pic, that is good too.  Since I do not, I use the delay to take the pictures so the telescope is not shaking.

IMG_0343 (Small)

I sent mine to 10 seconds with 3 continuous pics to be taken.  Figured one of them should come out OK!

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After that, you are ready to attach the camera to the telescope!

But before I do that, the T-Adapter for the camera does have a threaded fitting so that you can add lenses.

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Here I have installed the Moon filter that I have. This also helps to protect the camera as nothing can drop into the camera lens.  This lens came with the Accessory Kit I purchased with my Telescope.

IMG_0353 (Small)

To mount, just remove the eye-piece from the telescope and insert the camera in its place.  After that, you are ready to rock and roll!

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If you want, you can use the LCD on the camera to look through the telescope.  Here you can see me looking at my neighbor down the streets satellite dish

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Here is the pic that I took (I did forget to clean the telescope lens)

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That about covers it!  Enjoy!!!

Oh, one last thing.   The movement of the moon will be more obvious when you are taking pictures of it – be aware of where the Moon is situated in your camera.  Might want to be a little ahead of it so that it is centered in the picture.

Telescope:

[AMAZONPRODUCT=B0038LX8XE] 

Accessory Kit

[AMAZONPRODUCT=B00006RH5I]

T-Adapter

[AMAZONPRODUCT=B0000665V6]

T2 Adapter for NEX

[AMAZONPRODUCT=B0031CH93U]