Eyepiece Projection

Eyepiece projection is a great way to take detailed shoots of moon and planets. Photographed objects in these images are considerably larger and show more detail than such taken with prime focus shots. Prime focus techniques replace the camera lens with a telescope OTA (no diagonal, no eyepiece), but eyepiece projection adds an eyepiece into the optical path, increasing focal … Read more

Black Holes

Black holes, the enigmatic cosmic objects, are actually not so rare in the universe. All it needs is a star with the mass of at least 10 times that of our sun. After its Hydrogen has run out and Hydrogen-fusion is no longer possible, things start to change. Without fusion, the equilibrium between gravity and … Read more

German Equatorial Mounts (GEMs) – Overview and Working

This article explains how German Equatorial Mounts work. Most people are familiar with camera tripods that offer vertical movement and head rotation. Telescope mounts based on this principle are called Altitude-Azimuth mounts, or Alt-Az mounts for short. German Equatorial Mounts (GEMs) are more complex, but they are preferred by astrophotographers and observers who like to … Read more