40D Live view through a scope

[Jeff]

I'm thinking about upgrading from a 30D to a 40D. One of the things that interests me is the live view but I'm wondering if there's enough light from a star to be able to focus. I hate taking a picture, zooming in, tweaking focus, repeating till I get it right.

[Johnny9s]

I have the 40D and have used live view to focus. You need a fairly dark sky and bright star to get good focus. I ended up buying a stiletto focuser because the focus wasn't always perfect and it really sucks to spend 4 hours imaging and find out that your focus was off a tiny bit:-?. It also depends on your focal length. With shorter (10-100mm) focal lengths and larger objects like the moon, live view is fine. For long focal lengths through a scope I would recommend an external focuser or software if you want perfect focus every time.

[Adrena1in]

I'd be interested to know a little more about these Stiletto focussers...where did you get yours Johnny, and what did you get? How does it work?

My 450D Live View is great, and pretty good on stars, but they do need to be bright stars. Lately tried to shoot M45, The Pleiades, and they're just about all bright enough, but any dimmer and they simply don't show up.

[Nighthound]

I'd be interested to know a little more about these Stiletto focussers...where did you get yours Johnny, and what did you get? How does it work?

My 450D Live View is great, and pretty good on stars, but they do need to be bright stars. Lately tried to shoot M45, The Pleiades, and they're just about all bright enough, but any dimmer and they simply don't show up.

I use my Stiletto(300 lpi screen) every time I image and it's yet to let me down.

The Stiletto unit is a small rectangular box-shaped unit with a diagonal coming off the back where an eyepiece is used. On the opposite side is an opening that is identical to your DSLR lens opening(size and hardware ring). You attach everything that you shoot with forward of your camera to that opening. Then you attach the Stiletto and all that hardware to your scope, so essentially all you've done is insert the Stiletto in place of your camera. Point your rig toward a very bright star like Vega, Sirius or Rigel if possible(must be a star, planet or Moon won't work). When you look into the Stiletto eyepiece you'll see many horizontal gray and white lines. You keep turning focus until the lines get wider and wider until all you see is about 3 lines. I like to center the dark line by adjusting the scope hand controller slightly. Once the dark line is centered turn focus until all of the dark line has filled the field of view, in other words completely blocking out all light(having a fine focus knob on your focuser helps a lot with this stage to reduce shake). When it is completely dark you have reached critical focus. Lock down scope focuser.

My description makes it sound time consuming but the whole process takes a few minutes at most. Lastly you remove the Stiletto and all the hardware from the scope and return all the hardware to your DSLR and place all back on scope and you are ready to rock. The Stiletto is designed with specific focal point set back for different DSLR makes so all you do is specify your camera make when ordering. It is without a doubt one of the best products I have ever used in this hobby. It works as advertised and the Stellar Technologies customer service is excellent.

• I am not affiliated in any way with Stellar Technologies, just a satisfied customer.