Easy Astrophotography with normal DSLR equipment

[jmb667]

Okay, shot these tonight. I know they're garbage, the street lights near our house is way too bright. But what do you guys think of the settings overall?


The originals are here.

Camera: Canon SX100 IS
ISO: 1600
Exposure: 15.0 sec
Aperture: 2.8
Focal Length: 6mm

Manual focused to infinity, white balance set "daylight".

[Actionman]

I love this type of Photography ,as i have only had a DSLR for a little over a year now Canon 450D & 50mm f/1.8 Mk II lens it was more a purchase to test the Digital waters so to speak now with the event of DSLR Video it opens up a whole new area for me to mix my Photo and Video rather than have them seperated by the Videography is the poor relation to Photography
idea as i keep being told by all who own SLR and DSLR cameras...
But i use my kit in ways that not many do .."You do what outside in all weathers......Your Mad" is the response i normally get.. But it seems reading this Forums Posts im not alone , you see all the Photographers i know only like Studios as they say "Its warm ,controlled and i get better photographs"
...

[Actionman]

Okay, shot these tonight. I know they're garbage, the street lights near our house is way too bright. But what do you guys think of the settings overall?


The originals are here.

Camera: Canon SX100 IS
ISO: 1600
Exposure: 15.0 sec
Aperture: 2.8
Focal Length: 6mm

Manual focused to infinity, white balance set "daylight".

hey at least you got out and thats the point mate the Moon shots are pretty good too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZJMFyEx9jQ
Heres my attempt at Timelapse of the moon and its the real colour too

[Ruben123]

Uhm, a cheap 50mm f/1.8 from Canon, on a cropped body..
Is it possible to take great photos from without mounting the camera with a motor? 50mm becomes 80mm or like, what would be the max shutter time here in Holland?
Grtz

[Bob Andersson]

Hi Ruben,

Holland doesn't matter but where you point the camera does. There's a handy table which includes an entry for a 100mm lens on a full framer (nearly equivalent to your 50mm lens) which you can see here. Interpolating very roughly it looks like about 18 seconds or so near the ecliptic up to about 33 seconds if the frame includes a declination of 60° if you want to avoid trails.

Bob.

[Ruben123]

Thanks Bob, that's a nice long exposure for astro.
Ruben

[romerosaurus]

I'm new with photography.
One question, how can i switch my nikon d3000 zoom into infinity? is it possible for the standard 18 - 55mm lens? thanks!

[Bob Andersson]

Hi romerosaurus,

May I wish you a warm welcome to the CameraLabs forum.

Unfortunately manual focus is the way to go for astrophotography. Even when a lens has a distance scale it's rarely accurate enough to get the best sharpness, especially considering the large apertures typically used. And rotating the focus ring to the hard stop near infinity doesn't work either as lenses can typically focus beyond infinity, something that probably only exists in the minds of lens designers and cartoon characters.

Live view can make the focussing a lot easier, particularly if you can shoot tethered to a computer. I note that the D3000 doesn't support Live View so I'm afraid it's down to trial and error. Use short exposures and be very methodical about how you move the focus ring. And be very critical of the results as you home in on the correct setting as any error will look a lot worse once you crank up the exposure time.

Bob.

[romerosaurus]

Thanks! Still having a hard time to understand though. Still, I know you guys will be a great help.

[Ruben123]

Photographing without astromount but with built-in IS is possible! :http://www.dpreview.com/news/1107/11070808pentaxastroreport.asp

[Bob Andersson]

.
Interesting if you already have an O-GPS1 but for less money couldn't you buy one of these:

Celestron AstroMaster 130EQ-MD (Motor Drive) Telescope

Bob.

[popo]

As an ex-owner of the Celestron AstroMaster 130EQ-MD I would imagine the Pentax GPS trick would be much easier to set up, even if they're different in usage.

[Symtex]

The mount seems flimsy to be me Bob. I think I lot of people don't realize that the mount is everything when it comes to astrophotography. It even more true when you want to do long exposure. I wouldn't suggest a newtonian reflector as a first AP scope. I would suggest something like an ED80 refractor.

[Bob Andersson]

Hi Symtex,

I totally agree: you get what you pay for which is why, for my dream system, I've gone to totally the other end of the market with an ASA DDM60 Pro (website). I'm still doing indoor testing and gaining familiarity with the controlling software but there's something quite spooky about seeing the mounting's encoders reporting sidereal tracking of way less than 1/10th of an arc second after a slew command from TheSkyX to move across about 90° of sky, a slew which takes less than 10 seconds and is virtually silent.

But, flimsy though the Celestron AstroMaster 130EQ-MD may be, it's a lot cheaper than the GPS unit and I think there's an excellent chance that, with the telescope removed and a DSLR in its place, the results would be at least as good as with that Pentax setup which can't compensate for field rotation and is also limited on exposure lengths. But hey, it's no big deal.

Bob.

[popo]

The GPS unit in a quick search has a street price of around £200. Samples they gave include 60 second exposures at 100mm, and 300 second exposures at 35mm. Fair enough if you want to do a lot of stacking it wouldn't be 1st choice, or at least have lots of manual movement required to keep up with the subject.

The 130EQ-MD appears to have a best street price around £135. At the minimum, you also need to get a T-ring and eyepiece adapter to hang the camera off it adding to the cost. And even then I couldn't use mine as the focal point was just too far inside the scope to reach a camera sensor. Instead I had to use eyepiece projection to get an image out of it. When I had it, I could never get the alignment set up in any reasonable amount of time.

While I'm sure the 130EQ-MD is great value for what you get, and in capable hands could probably produce some nice results, to me it was too much faffing around before you even start. As such was a false economy time wise.