Nikon CoolPix P900

[Rich Z]

A couple of weeks ago when the moon was getting near to being full again, and there was a break in the clouds, I mounted the P900 onto the Sky-Watcher Allview mount/tripod I bought to see how well that combo would work for panning the camera in a steady fashion while viewing the moon. All in all, it seemed to work pretty well. The Allview has 9 levels of movement speed for both the horizontal and vertical planes, and best I could tell, there was no backlash problems when motion was started or stopped. The would have been exhibited as a noticeable wobble at the beginning and the end of motion.

Of course, there is vibration evident transmitted through the tripod when I was trying to get the hand held controller off of the tripod, or actually touching the controls on the camera itself. And unfortunately the wireless remote I bought for the Nikon only works for triggering still photos (as far as I have been able to figure out), and doesn't work for initiating video. Nor does it work the zoom or anything else that would be nice to have so I wouldn't have to lay hands on the camera during video. But panning is really smooth with the Allview while I am doing it manually with the controller. Haven't figured out how to do actual tracking yet with it, mainly because the alignment procedure requires that I KNOW what stars I am using for reference, and I don't have a clue about that kind of stuff. So that is something I need to figure out first, I suppose.

Also, I had the auto-focus set incorrectly (for what I wanted, anyway) on the camera, so you can see the auto-focus struggling a bit during the motion of the moon across the screen. I didn't realize this till the last segment of video. Next time maybe I will try full manual focus since I'm guessing the entire moon should stay within the depth of field and not even need any sort of autofocus. But honestly, it's hard to think of everything when you are swatting at mosquitoes at the same time you are trying to get the camera set up correctly AND maneuver the motorized mount too. At least for this soggy old brain of mine, anyway. I guess it will get easier with experience with this new equipment.



But even with all the warts, I'm still amazed at the video I can get of the moon with this P900. And that Allview mount just makes panning the field of view a LOT easier at that high magnification, which quite honestly can be pretty tough handheld, or even on a standard tripod.

[Rich Z]

Well, I went and purchased a solar filter, figuring it might be interesting to take some pics of the sun. So I did get the pics, but interesting? Hardly....