Here are some of my deep-sky astrophotographs I took in the early to mid-1980's.

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During the early to mid-1980's I took deep-sky astrophotographs using Celestron 8 (C8) Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (SCT).

Here is a photograph of my friends C11 in the foreground and my C8 in the background with Meade 4" mounted on top. I sometimes used the Meade 4" with the Lumicon Easy Guider to get wider field of view images and guided through the C8:

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For my astrophotography I used an Olympus OM-1 body which was lightweight, reliable, and had a mirror lockup. In addition I used an Olympus Varimagni Finder help obtain sharp focus. This accessory magnified the image from 1.2x to 2.5x. I still use this camera today for my aurora and lunar eclipse astrophotography.

To increase the speed of the film I hypered the film in a Lumicon Model 600 Hypering tank. After much experimentation I settled on using hypered Kodak VR 400 speed color negative film, which had good sensitivity to both the blue and red ends of the spectrum. Exposure times ran up to about an hour.

An Astro-Physics (AP) 8002 dual-axis drive corrector with declination motor used to make corrections during the exposure.

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A Lumicon Off-Axis Easy Guider was used guide the exposures and to reduce the focal ratio from of the Celestron 8 from f/10 to f/5.8:

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Photograph of Celestron 8 with Meade 4" SCT piggybacked on top. I sometimes used the Meade 4" with the Lumicon Easy Guider to get wider field of view images and guided through the C8. To reduce dew formation on the corrector plate a heating element was wrapped around the front of the C8.

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The standard spur gear drive that came with the Celestron 8 was not very accurate, so I replaced it with a higher quality Kencor worm gear drive. The declination motor of the AP 8002 dual-axis drive corrector is visible on the left fork tines of the C8. The connector for the heating element is visible in the upper right of the photograph:

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Here are some of the deep-sky astrophotographs I took with the C8:

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Andromeda

The Andromeda Galaxy M31

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Hercules

The Great Hercules Cluster M13

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Orion

The Great Orion Nebula M42

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Tauras

The Pleiades or Seven Sisters Star Cluster M45

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Triangulum

The Pinwheel Galaxy M33

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Ursa Major

M82

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All Photographs © 2008, Eric Jamison, all rights reserved. May not be used without written permission.

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