Digiscoping

Digiscoping is a neologism for afocal photography, using a (digital) camera to record distant images through the eyepiece of an optical telescope.

[2] The portmanteau term "digiscoping" (= digital camera + telescoping) was coined in 1999 by French birdwatcher Alain Fossé.

The origins of the activity called Digiscoping has been attributed to the photographic methods of Laurence Poh, a birdwatcher from the Malaysian Nature Society, who discovered in 1999 almost by accident that the new generation of point and shoot digital cameras could be held up to the eyepiece of a standard spotting scope and achieve surprisingly good results.

[citation needed] He spread his findings through birding internet discussion forums and one member, French birdwatcher Alain Fossé, coined the name "digiscoping" to describe the technique.

[4] Laurence Poh is sometimes credited with "inventing" the technique[5] although his contribution may be more along the lines of popularizing the idea and refining the technology.

Spotting scope with a digital camera mounted afocally using an adapter.
Digiscoping waterfowl
Typical uncropped digiscope image; the spotting scope has 20x magnification. Camera focal length is 24 mm; distance to the subject is about 90 meters.