I have a telescope...celestron 13" refracting(multiple eye pieces). Was wondering if anybody out there has the ability to photograph through there telescope and if so, show me a pic. of the andromeda galaxy. I've looked at it through mine and really just want a reference to see different quality through other telescopes...obviously a photo will look better than what I see through my scope...but I want to see size diffs and such.

Thanks
Terry B.

I understand that there are a lot of photos on the web. but I thought some ATSers would like to share some photos.

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.
It's not a difficult object to photograph. You don't even need a telescope, just a camera that is capable of taking long exposures, and a reasonably fast lens.

I'd like to strongly disagree with the first sentence. It's quite hard to photograph this object because its light is spread out over an area the size of the moon in the sky, thus you need very long subexposures if you're shooting with any kind of significant focal length. There's also a huge brightness difference between the core and the outer bands so you need lots of dynamic range to keep from overexposing the center (which most photos do) - HDR processing is usually called for. I don't have a decent shot of this galaxy yet because it's so hard to adequately capture enough of its light in a telescope, especially if your scope has a long focal length (which a 13" refractor certainly would). The second sentence I agree with; this is probably the easiest way to do it, provided you mount your camera on your scope while tracking.

[edit on 8-10-2008 by ngchunter]

Originally posted by riotact1
I have a telescope...celestron 13" refracting(multiple eye pieces).

Are you sure about that? A 13 inch refracting telescope would be huge.

Its most likely a Schmidt-Cassegrain. It is easy to confuse those with a refractor.

Originally posted by zombiemann
Its most likely a Schmidt-Cassegrain. It is easy to confuse those with a refractor.

Uh yeah...you are right. I'm not all that knowledgeable and I bought the telescope many years ago...at the time I bought it I thought it was refractor. Anyway...the purpose of this thread was to see if some ATSers have taken photos of M31.