YellowHammer on C5000

[ChrisCourtauxuk]

Taken with C5000, LCE adaptor, Sw65HD and good sunlight. A little vignetting - but I only used the optical zoom at highest mag. Including a CF tripod this is a very light set - needs a steady hand.

Anybody with experience of C5000 and digiscoping that can offer further advice - all I see at the moment is suggestions that the camera is not suitable for digiscoping??

[Lin Evans]

Looks like it's working pretty well - you may want to resize to about 800x600 to post because it's going to be a really slow load for those with 56K modems.

Image looks clean - there are several people using the CP5000 for digiscoping. It's not the "best" because of the external telescoping lens, but the results can be fine as you found out. With the Swaro 80, it's a little easier in lower light, but it looks like you have done a pretty good job with the 65. The only other thing I could suggest would be to use a DigiSnap 2000 for remote shutter release. It's a bit easier than using the timed release or risking motion blurr by accidentally moving the setup when you press the shutter.

You may want to look at Neat Image for additional noise control. All in all - not a bad image.

Best regards,

Lin

[ChrisCourtauxuk]

I have attached a smaller version - sorry folks

Can anyone help with the question about effective magnification and focal length on my gear. I am led to beleive that the C5000 maximum magnification is only 1.5 times as the lens starts from 28mm - is this true. I tend to use the zoom on the Sw65 at between 20 mm and 40 mm

This zoom range will vary depending oon the set up of the cameras' lens, the new coolpix 5000 has a 3x zoom but it starts from 28mm. On its maximum telephoto setting a magnification of 1.5x is all that is possible, which in reality works well, but will only give a magnification of 45x.

[ChrisCourtauxuk]

Attached this time

[Lin Evans]

Hi Chris,
The CP5000 has a focal length of 84mm at 3x. The way this relates to your scope is like this. When the Nikon is zoomed all the way (which it will usually be to avoid vignetting - shadowing in the corners) you determine focal length by multiplying the "power" factor of your Swarovski by 84mm. So, if you are using a 20x to 60x eyepiece, you would have a range of 84 times 20 or 1680mm to 84mm times 60 or 5040mm. If you zoom slightly beyond the 3x of your 5000 to a bit of digital zoom (to get rid of corner shadowing) then the focal length is effectively increased a bit.

This should give you some idea of what you are getting. You simply multiply the 35mm equivalent focal length of your camera by the power factor provided by the telescope's eyepiece to get the effective focal length.

Best regards,

Lin

[ChrisCourtauxuk]

Thanks