Mounting a Red One/Epic to a massive telescope?

[Tom Lowe]

Does anyone know of a large, installed telescope I could use to shoot the moon's surface with a Red? Preferably would mount with PL, or as a last resort Canon EOS mount.

Has such a thing been done before with regular 35mm PL-mount film cameras?

 

[Richard Foster]

I would contact astronomy clubs in your area and talk to them about it. They can probably get you the entree into an observatory with a great permanently installed scope.

 

[Vico Martin]

Timelapsing the canyons of the moon?

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

something we don't now?

something we don't now?

What's going on on the moon that you need to shoot motion?
Anything exciting?:confused1:

 

[Vico Martin]

I don´t know how big is the telescope you are looking for, but I found a Nikon mount to 2" barrel here:

http://www.telescopeadapters.com/

Vico.

 

[Tom Lowe]

What's going on on the moon that you need to shoot motion?
Anything exciting?:confused1:

The idea would be to pan across mountain ranges and craters on the moon. Red would be better than timelapse because you can run the shutter fast without a physical shutter rattling the camera.

 

[Aaron Bernakevitch]

Hey Tom

If you stick around on my reel until .19 seconds

http://vimeo.com/9036753

I have a pretty decent image of the moon. I used a 500mm Nikon Prime in 2k and cropped in slightly. How close are you trying to get?

 

[Graeme Nattress]

You probably need around a 1500mm lens to get the Moon to fill an S35 sized frame.

Graeme

 

[Liam Hall]

It depends what you mean by massive telescope since few large telescopes use the visible spectrum, but for most telescopes you simply need a T-mount and an adapter ring. I've done it with a few different camera/telescope combinations with varying degrees of success.

 

[Tom Lowe]

You probably need around a 1500mm lens to get the Moon to fill an S35 sized frame.

Graeme

I want to see Neil Armstrong's footprints. :sifone:

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Ok - you're going to need a few more mm then Tom! Can't wait to see what you come up with as I love moon imagery.

Graeme

 

[Stivan Widick]

The idea would be to pan across mountain ranges and craters on the moon...

Why not just take the highest resolution still you can get and zoom/pan that?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I want to see Neil Armstrong's footprints. :sifone:

Hehe... You could beg to have Hubble pointed at the moon.

I'm PM'ing you. I might be able to help with the telescope thing (not with Hubble).

 

[JohnF]

Hi Tom,

I've been planning similar shots for RED cameras for some time now. I've got plenty of experience with astro-shooting but with much lighter cameras and I can tell you there are a few more problems than just the cam-telescope mounting to deal with.

Yes you're going to need a big scope but for astro-shooting with a RED much more is needed.

If I can be of any assistance I'd love to help out. Drop me a line! (PM me)

All the best

JohnF

 

[JD Holloway]

sadly Hubble's moon resolution is only about 300 ft. Still, it might be used for panning mountain ranges.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I've been planning similar shots for RED cameras for some time now. I've got plenty of experience with astro-shooting but with much lighter cameras and I can tell you there are a few more problems than just the cam-telescope mounting to deal with.

John speaks the truth. Not always a simple task. However, there are some scopes out there that are specifically designed for attaching large imager cameras and could help here. A lot will depend on what type of shots you want to achieve.

 

[Joe Taylor]

Hey Tom,

I have a Meade LX200 that I have made a mounting system that handles my RED tracking bursts up to about 45 seconds before you have to reset. It works much better with the 5D weight wise, but I've gotten some really incredible shots with this scope using my Red. I'm going to be shooting this weekend in the Mojave National Preserve if you want to meet up. I'll be shooting with Terence Dickinson in January who has a massive 21" scope that he made that I've mounted a 35mm Arriflex, so it will handle the Red for sure. Give me a call. 515.238.0617

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

5200mm Canon Lens World's MOST powerful Super telephoto EF FD lens >>>You Tube>>>

At the end of that video you can see also Moon shots with a slight CA!

 

[Tom Lowe]

That 5200 is nice, but I'm looking for something more like this. :w00t:

 

[Joe Taylor]

The thing about astro-photography is that those extreme deep field and ultra detailed planetary and moon shots, most of that type of work is achieved with dedicated camera systems that are linked to the magnifying eyepieces which have much smaller sensors than the Red or 35mm cameras. They only way to mount a larger camera like that is to use the scope like a lens which bypasses the eyepiece, which have different grades of magnification. Even a massive scope in an observatory will be limited when compared to what can be achieved with magnified eyepiece if you're trying to use a camera like the Red. If I were you, Tom, I'd speak to a professional astronomer like Terence Dickinson, who is in Toronto at the moment, who specialize in astrophotography and have access to observatories. However, most observatories are limited to what can be mounted to the back of a scope since their cameras ( which are almost always still cameras) are built into the scopes and are mainly used for deep sky work.