[camry man68]

Hello, I am completely new to astrophotography and I would like to take deep space photos of galaxies and nebulae. Also I have already tried to take moon photos. I have a nikon d50 with a telephoto lens that goes up to 200mm and the stock lens which goes to 55mm. I was able to get decent pics of the moon by setting the f/stop to 22 and the ISO to 200, but these pics are nothing special and need improvement. As for deep space photos from what the I've read it seems the trick is to shoot long exposures. Any advice? I m not interested in getting a telescope even though that might be exactly what i need.

[slotdrag]

I think somebody else will help you more. But i think you will need a scope with some type of motor drive system so it will track the sky. Take lots of long exposer pictures and stack the pictures with a program like registack.

[sgcullen]

Greetings and welcome to SpaceSpot. You will be limited to what you can take with just a camera since most deep space objects require long exposures. With a good sky tracking mount you could certainly use your camera and a 200mm lens to take wide field images. You could get some great shots of the Orion Nebula (M 42), the Andromeda Galaxy (M 31), and a number of other objects. Bottom line, you don't need a telescope, but you do need a sky tracking mount. I keep meaning to do a review of the Astrotrac mount, which is exactly what I think you're looking for. I've attached a few pics of my Astrotrac and a few quick test pictures from it. I will try to get around to that review now too.