A Barlow lens, and some adapters

In my last blog post I wrote that you need some additional pieces to be able to mount your camera to a telescope (or to a microscope, there aren’t that many differences). Here’s what you need if you want to adapt a Micro Four Thirds camera to a standard ‘scope with a 1.25″ focuser:

7df_9062136-epl5-barlow-lens

7df_9062137-barlow-adapters

So besides the mentioned Barlow lens (German Wikipedia explanation is here; English one is here), you need a ยต4/3rds/T2 mount, and some additional distance ring and T2/1.25″ adapter.

But a fair warning before you even start: if you really want to take pictures of the stars, and of deep sky objects, things can get pretty pricey pretty quick. A good motorized equatorial mount will start at 1000-1200 dollars / Euro, and that doesn’t even include a telescope (nor the second “guiding camera” which you definitely need for exposure times of > 30 seconds or so). So for deep sky objects, be prepared to spend north of 2000-3000 dollars / Euro for the beginning. Be also prepared to carry heavy batteries out into the fields and on top of some mountains, and to spend many nights in the dark and cold. And still your pictures won’t compete to Hubble’s because of our earth’s atmosphere, and the “seeing“. You can eliminate that with something called “adaptive mirror technology”, but then for us consumers, prices start at about a million… you’d rather ask the NASA or ESO to help you with this. ๐Ÿ˜‰

If you start without a telescope, you can have it a bit cheaper with devices like this one, or with an AstroTrac for about the double amount.

Thanks for reading.