Home Astronomy

Saturn through the Meade ETX 90 with a Canon PowerShot G3 using eyepiece projection (26 December 2003)

Mars through the Celestron C8 with the Fire-I webcam at prime-focus (6 September 2003).

I am starting to archive my digital astronomy experiments on my pbase account

Here on Digital Astronomy from Scratch I have been documenting my adventures attempting to take pictures with my Meade ETX and Celestron C8 and various photographic devices, including a Canon PowerShot G3 attached via Scopetronix Digadapt Projection Adapter and a Fire-I webcam that I modified for easy prime-focus photography.

Non-Original Stuff:

• If you're just starting out in astronomy, Home Science: Backyard Astronomy Basics can get you pointed in the right direction
• Mike Weasner's ETX Web Site, the greatest site for Meade ETX fans, with lots of examples of ETX astrophotography, how-to tips, etc.
• spaceweather.com - where I surf every day to see what's going on in the universe
• Astronomy Picture of the Day. So great. Just keep hitting the "<" link to see previous days until you've hit the ones you've already seen. The images are beautiful. Usually clicking on one will get you a much-higher res version.
• dpreview.com, the best general reviews of new digital still cameras (not strictly for astronomy)
• How's the seeing in San Jose, California? (Courtesy of cleardarksky.com)
• Meade's Gallery of Astrophotography

Old crufty stuff

• The August 1998 issue of Sky & Telescope talks about a technique very similar to my "digital astronomy from scratch" technique. See Ron Dantowitz's gallery of excellent images, and a description of his technique.
• Nasa's Mars Webpages
• Bob Lombardi's Amateur Telescope Maker's (ATM) Resource List
• A Review of the Meade ETX
• Another Review of the Meade ETX
• A guide to Buying the Best Telescope from Sky Publishing Corp. is an excellent article on getting started with astronomy.