Here are some earlier film images taken mostly with just a simple camera lense, but using either a camera tracking mount, or mounted piggyback on one of my scopes.
This is an interesting set of shots of comets Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp. The pictures don't show as well as the originals, but if you look hard you can see that each was taken from the same location at about the same time of the year. And each comet is in about the same place in the sky!
Notice the dark area on the lower left of each picture. This is a large rock pile at Hidden Valley in Joshua Tree national park. Just setting over the top of the pile on the extreme left of each photo is the Pleiades. The bright object in the upper photo is Venus.
You can see also that the comet is within the same cluster of stars in each shot. This was totally unplanned, of course, and I only noticed it later when looking over my photos.
Comet Linear. Shot from the San Bernardino mountains piggyback through an 80mm refracter. The skies were quite bright, as the comet was setting in the west over L.A. -STV Image-
Hale-Bopp. Before you could see it naked-eye.
Hyakutake. Taken with a standered lens using a Vista Tracker for following the stars. See picture of unit on "equipment" page. About 5 minute exposure.
Comet West. My first real attempt at astrophotography back in 1976. The film was Tri-X 400 ASA. Exposure about 19 sec. Tripod mounted camera.
Notice the dark area on the lower left of each picture. This is a large rock pile at Hidden Valley in Joshua Tree national park. Just setting over the top of the pile on the extreme left of each photo is the Pleiades. The bright object in the upper photo is Venus.
