Stars, planets and galaxies

[Moggy]

Im pretty sure that this topic must have been posted on here before, but as I am new to this site (and camera's in general) please forgive me if this is a repost.

I would love to take a reasonably good picture of the planets and possibly a few stars.

Any idea on how I go about this?

I am currently using a Fuji Finepix S6500fd, and although I realise that this is nowhere near top end as far as cameras are concerned, what is the ebst way to go about snapping the planets?

Any help on this would be most appreciated

Cheers
:thumbup:

 

[Propsguy]

You'll need a telescope for planetary imaging... it might be possible to mount your camera on macro rails (or some such equivalent) pointing the lens into the eyepiece barrel on your telescope and get some reasonable captures...

There are probably several astronomy clubs in or near your city, you should check them out and go along on one of their outings.... it becomes painfully evident that there is a massive disparity between "top end gear" and hacked together solutions where astrophotography is concerned. This is one of the few arenas where spending serious cash is directly proportional to image quality.

Here's a very interesting website that belongs to a guy in my hometown who is obsessed with astrophotography.... MALLINCAM Video CCD Observational System . Look closely at the image data and you'll see how amazing his captures are... I'm not affiliated with him, but I did meet him at an astronomer's function where he had his gear setup in a parking lot in downtown Ottawa on a hazy night, and he was capturing incredible images despite conditions that would make most others throw in the hat...

Here's a link to a very basic example of how you might mount your camera to your scope... A Simple Digital Camera-Telescope Mount