Best L series lens for Astronomy Shooting

Hi all, I've recently gotten into astronomy photography, mainly moon and star shots.'i am considering investing in an L series telescopic lens. I'm prepared to pay the steep price but I'm a bit jaded and want to make the best decision possible. I'm looking for a lens with extreme telescopic abilities and I'm fine with extra weight, etc. Can someone please chime in with a recommendation? Thanks guys!

Hello Glh,

Well, I try to help you, but you need to say first what camera you plan to use and what kind of Equatorial Mount you have....

Kind Regards,
Mick

I shoot with a d60'

Haven't purchased the mount yet, figured the lens wold dictate huge mount... What are you thinking?

ok.... so it's a APSC sensor and I assume you not have a EQ mount ...yet. You need one.
For a start you need a short(for astro) focal lenght refractor.... around 400mm. Popular refractors are the 80ED/f7.5 and use it with focal reducer and field flattener. You can use telephoto lens, but it's not optimised for astro. If you go for more focal lenght the demand of the mount tracking accuracy is increase and you need to get a guide-scope .... more weight mean bigger mount and better (worm)gear to drive the scope. If you want a high-resolution Moon shots then you need a biger telescope/mount and a different camera...
It's a steep learning curve.... and a lot more to it. I highly recomend to join a astro club/blog
....and stand under a cold shower tearing up $100 bills.... he..he...he
just kidding.... astronomy is a very rewarding hobby.

I hope this is useful for you.... and my less than perfect English is comprehandable

Cheers,
Mick

Lol, thoroughly confused but appreciate the help!

Why dont you test the water with a Samyang 14mm 2.8-just amazing for astro shots and cheap cheap cheap!!

Isn't that designed for nikons?

Glh222 wrote in post #16934858
Isn't that designed for nikons?

No both. Check the thread

https://photography-on-the.net …age=239&highlig​ht=samyang

Glh222 wrote in post #16934701
Hi all, I've recently gotten into astronomy photography, mainly moon and star shots.'i am considering investing in an L series telescopic lens. I'm prepared to pay the steep price but I'm a bit jaded and want to make the best decision possible. I'm looking for a lens with extreme telescopic abilities and I'm fine with extra weight, etc. Can someone please chime in with a recommendation? Thanks guys!

Heya,

Don't waste your time & money. Spending $6K on a telephoto lens fast enough and long enough to do deep space objects is a novelty as you still need a tracker, stabilizer, etc. The big awesome deep space photos you see in the forum are mostly from telescopes on equatorial mounts that cost less than a big 600mm Canon lens.

Wide field photography is a cinch. Again, L doesn't get you the best. The 24L isn't as good as the Rokinon 24 F1.4 for this. The Rokinon is sharper and has way better coma. Plenty of examples by Mack in the forum using both. At less than half the cost. L doesn't mean best by any means.

If you're into wide field astro, a dSLR and normal lenses are fine. L-won't get you anything fancy other than weather sealing. Instead, focus on getting the best astro lenses for your goals. They're not L's likely.

If you really want to get into dedicated deep space, really high resolution frame filling moon shots, then look into a good telescope with dSLR mount, guided tracker, on an equatorial mount. Expect a good $2k in start up on this. Still cheaper than big dSLR telephoto, yet will achieve far greater results.

Very best,

^great advice given there.

It doesn't even have to be $2k. My setup (Celestron 6" Newtonian reflector with fully robotic equatorial mount) costed me ~$1k new (I ended up spending a few more hundreds $ for nice eyepieces, but that is not needed for astrophotography). Moon is fairly easy; deep sky objects are more tricky (as there is more demand on tracking accuracy), but I usually got nice shots with ~30 seconds exposure without doing anything special (like, balancing the telescope for the specific pointing - strongly recommended for astrophotography).

on your 60D, try the Samyang 8mm.

my copy is an f/3.5. there's a newer f/2.8 in the pipeline - which may, or may not, now be available.

be sure to get a copy with a removable hood (red band on lens barrel) - that way it can function as a semi-circular fisheye on a full-frame. the original copies (gold band on barrel) had hoods permanently affixed - which vignetted badly on FF cameras. lots of folks were using bench grinders to remove the hoods (a tad scary).

these images were shot on a 60D within the past week: https://www.flickr.com …3/sets/72157644​829376961/

The 8mm is fisheye but there is a new 10mm f2 8 that looks good.

I use a sy 14mm on 6d and also shoot all my stitched shots on a 24mm tse mk2, it's only f3. 5 but optically great so no need to stop down.

Most of canons short fast primes are optimised for portraits and reportage not astro. This means bad coma CA and vignetting etc.

pulsar123 wrote in post #16935912
It doesn't even have to be $2k. My setup (Celestron 6" Newtonian reflector with fully robotic equatorial mount) costed me ~$1k new (I ended up spending a few more hundreds $ for nice eyepieces, but that is not needed for astrophotography). Moon is fairly easy; deep sky objects are more tricky (as there is more demand on tracking accuracy), but I usually got nice shots with ~30 seconds exposure without doing anything special (like, balancing the telescope for the specific pointing - strongly recommended for astrophotography).

That's interesting Pulsar. I've just bought the Nexstar 6 SE, but not taken it out of the box yet. Do you use your DSLR with it or a webcam? I read somewhere that an old Phillips webcam or something got the best results. I have a 5D Mk2 so if I could hook that up with the Canon SLR mount I might try that first. Any advice? Thanks!