Star photography
Discussion
Right folks, as the nights are starting draw in 
and there might be the odd clear sky over 'Norn Iron' (wishful thinking) I thought I might have a go at some star photography to get me out and about and keep me off the wine 
Anyone have any tips or shall I just the employ the age old method of take loads of pics and delete most of them ?
I currently have a 400D with kit lens, 50mm F1.8, 28-135mm F3.5-5.6 IS and a 70-200mm F4 L
Oh, I do also have a 4" F12 Maksutov-Cassegrain scope with T2 mount but have not used the Canon with it yet.
Please be sure to show off your handywork
and there might be the odd clear sky over 'Norn Iron' (wishful thinking) I thought I might have a go at some star photography to get me out and about and keep me off the wine Anyone have any tips or shall I just the employ the age old method of take loads of pics and delete most of them ?
I currently have a 400D with kit lens, 50mm F1.8, 28-135mm F3.5-5.6 IS and a 70-200mm F4 L
Oh, I do also have a 4" F12 Maksutov-Cassegrain scope with T2 mount but have not used the Canon with it yet.
Please be sure to show off your handywork
http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/paulj1969/te...
this is my handywork, not brilliant but i quite like the shots.
my equipment is a canon300D and phillips toucam for the webcam shots.
the telescope is a skywatcher 200mm with HEQ5 goto mount which when i finally sus out how to work the polarscope i'll be able to do exposures of more than 30 seconds, most of the star shots are 30seconds each and then stacked.
if your mount has tracking then on of the best ways to shoot stars is to mount the camera on the side of it and set it tracking the sky, i sugest ISO100, white bracketing to tungsten for any street lights you have, shutter to bulb and aperture to F22 although you might want to experiement with these settings.
i have a T-adapter on the eyepiece of the scope and all i have to do is unscrew the eyepiece, take off the lense of the camera and lock it in place, then focus while viewing through the canon and when i happy that it's sharp take the shot.
hope this helps
Paul
this is my handywork, not brilliant but i quite like the shots.
my equipment is a canon300D and phillips toucam for the webcam shots.
the telescope is a skywatcher 200mm with HEQ5 goto mount which when i finally sus out how to work the polarscope i'll be able to do exposures of more than 30 seconds, most of the star shots are 30seconds each and then stacked.
if your mount has tracking then on of the best ways to shoot stars is to mount the camera on the side of it and set it tracking the sky, i sugest ISO100, white bracketing to tungsten for any street lights you have, shutter to bulb and aperture to F22 although you might want to experiement with these settings.
i have a T-adapter on the eyepiece of the scope and all i have to do is unscrew the eyepiece, take off the lense of the camera and lock it in place, then focus while viewing through the canon and when i happy that it's sharp take the shot.
hope this helps
Paul
hope you got plently of money because going cheap on scopes isn't a good idea, infact the best thing you can buy is a decent mount, look for a HEQ5 mount.
those two pics we're taken with the webcam instead of the eyepiece, i took AVI movie clips and then stacked the movie in some software to produce one image.
glad you like em.
Paul
those two pics we're taken with the webcam instead of the eyepiece, i took AVI movie clips and then stacked the movie in some software to produce one image.
glad you like em.
Paul
My Attempts:
Bare in mind it's an expensive hobby! All the above were taken on cheap ebay kit, with my old 300D, get a decent scope etc and you're well into the thousands...
Graham - those Milky way shots, are they tracked at all? Pretty mad if not. Would love to know the settings. I lugged a barndoor tracker round africa, but the vibration ruined the shots. Thinking I may get better results stationary.
Bare in mind it's an expensive hobby! All the above were taken on cheap ebay kit, with my old 300D, get a decent scope etc and you're well into the thousands...
Graham - those Milky way shots, are they tracked at all? Pretty mad if not. Would love to know the settings. I lugged a barndoor tracker round africa, but the vibration ruined the shots. Thinking I may get better results stationary.
Edited by VxDuncan on Monday 22 September 19:12
Famous Graham said:
Don't remind me
Duncan - no not tracked, just plonked the camera on the ground on its back.
Exposure: 13 sec (13)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 1000
Cool! You've recorded loads, given the relatively short exposure. I'm thinking leave the heavy bit of tracking junk at home, and similar length exposure, 3200ISO, stacking a few frames to reduce the noise and F1.4 lens. Genius!Duncan - no not tracked, just plonked the camera on the ground on its back.
Exposure: 13 sec (13)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 1000
VxDuncan said:
Famous Graham said:
Don't remind me
Duncan - no not tracked, just plonked the camera on the ground on its back.
Exposure: 13 sec (13)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 1000
Cool! You've recorded loads, given the relatively short exposure. I'm thinking leave the heavy bit of tracking junk at home, and similar length exposure, 3200ISO, stacking a few frames to reduce the noise and F1.4 lens. Genius!Duncan - no not tracked, just plonked the camera on the ground on its back.
Exposure: 13 sec (13)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 1000
Famous Graham said:
Duncan - no not tracked, just plonked the camera on the ground on its back.
Exposure: 13 sec (13)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 1000
You really can't help but capture loads down there. It is phenomenally clear. Plus I trekked about 2 miles out of the village I was staying in, up the foothills, and there were no other settlements for about 15 miles, so almost nil light pollution.
Now thats what i'm talking about Exposure: 13 sec (13)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 1000
You really can't help but capture loads down there. It is phenomenally clear. Plus I trekked about 2 miles out of the village I was staying in, up the foothills, and there were no other settlements for about 15 miles, so almost nil light pollution.
Hmmmmm
looks like i need to factor a move to Chile into the costs Edited by Stu247 on Tuesday 23 September 10:45
On another note, without getting into the whole image stacking business, when does the need to use the 'long exposure noise reduction' kick in ? (if at all)
I was playing about with the 400D last night and turned this setting on for a laugh..as one does.
I did notice that there must be a hell of a lot of post processing going on as it took as long as the actual exposure to finish writing to the memory card.
Ahhh...ok so it takes another exposure of the same length with the shutter closed then subtracts this black frame from the orignal to remove any hot pixel noise.
I was playing about with the 400D last night and turned this setting on for a laugh..as one does.
I did notice that there must be a hell of a lot of post processing going on as it took as long as the actual exposure to finish writing to the memory card.
Ahhh...ok so it takes another exposure of the same length with the shutter closed then subtracts this black frame from the orignal to remove any hot pixel noise.
Edited by Stu247 on Tuesday 23 September 14:17
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