Gear for photographing the Moon

Photography gear

If you’re at all curious about the equipment I’ve been using to shoot my recent Moon photos, click on the above photo to see the annotations on its Flickr page.

From left to right: a DR-6 right-angle finder for Nikon digital SLRs, which is mounted on my Nikon D90 digital SLR, to which is attached a T-ring for a Nikon F-mount, which allows the camera to connect to my Televue 2× Powermate with its T-ring adapter, which, in turn, is inserted into a two-inch extension tube, which is inserted into the focuser of my Sky-Watcher Equinox 80 apochromatic refractor.

All of which is completely unwieldy on my now surprisingly flimsy Manfrotto tripod. Time for a better mount. For lunar photography, a computerized equatorial mount is overkill; I can do this with a sturdy alt-azimuth mount that would normally be used for observing. Candidates include Astro-Tech’s Voyager, Orion’s VersaGo and Vixen’s Porta II; heavier-duty possibilities include Orion’s SkyView AZ, Sky-Watcher’s HDAZ, and similar mounts. Time to poke around.