Just getting started in Astrophotography question.

I am intrigued and have a $1000-1500 to spend. I have a 70D and a 6D and want to get some good shots of the moon, planets and deep space. What would be cost effective ? Appreciate and any and all responses in advance. I assume that most, if not all astrophotography is taken with the aid of a decent telescope ?

I'm not sure because i'm a begginer, but i think moon, planets and deep space requires different hardware.
I started i few months ago with the same questions you ask.

For the moon, maybe this telescope will be fine:
http://www.amazon.com …liid=I1XZ2NRKVK​Q879&psc=1

For deep space, what i guess you want is take photos/images of stars, nebulae, ..., very faint objects. I think you need a equatorial mount to track objects and take long exposure images.

I bought a sky-watcher star adventurer equatorial mount; is a little equatorial mount, $350 in USA. I want to try without a big budget. If i like astrophotography, then i will invest more money with bigger equatorial mount, and bigger telescope (or better quality optics).

With this sky-watcher star adventurer i think i can take images of orion nebulae. I think this mount will be capable of using a Sigma 50-150 f2.8 and Sigma 150-500.

Hope this helps.

Edit: also this telescope should work on sky-watcher star adventurer:
http://www.amazon.com …3SW&coliid=I3IS​N6BKPFTELB

And this too but is not APO ED optics (but look the images on the review!!):
http://www.amazon.com …9H1O/ref=cm_cd_​al_qh_dp_i

In my case, there's a lot to learn about optics, differents types of telescope (reflector, refractor, etc.), accesories (eye pices, barlow, etc.). Differents telescope may work better for some type of photography (moon, planetary, deep sky).

I learned a lot with this videos:

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=9d0292TBMHo
https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=zQB6UnrTEEM
https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=sW8NyT3r2LU

Astrophotography can be wide field or narrow, like normal photography you need different focal lengths to frame different objects. Also like terrestrial photography, aperture is king. Planets need a long focal length and require video stacking to generate good resolutions. You are better off with a small ccd for planetary imaging than a dslr. For nebula, a scope or lens can be used. I have a 8" 1,624mm f8 Ritchie Chreitien and a 480mm f5.6 refractor. The rc frames m 101 pretty well, m51 is still kinda small, and f8 requires long exposures and good guiding. I'm going to go towards all wide field in the future. My refractor is very good quality but at f5.6 it is a tad slow. I want shorter exposures so I'm going for F4 or F 5. Honestly all of the old FD lenses, 500mm f4.5, 600mm f4, and 800mm f5.6 with Ed mika adapters would make superb telescopes. For me, I think 500mm is going to be as long as I'm going to go. I'm going to sell my cge and keep the zeq25. I will add a 300mm f4, a 135mm f2, and probably a 500mm f4.5. I'm considering selling my t2i and astro filters to get a 5dsr.

The mount you use is crucial, star adventurer is nice but will not take you far into serious imaging. If you want 300s+ subs then Get a good eq mount like the skywatcher azeq5, celestron Ava, or zeq25. Step up payload with an atlas or ieq45. Much more and you'll surpass your budget on mounts. Also, you need an autoguider package like the Orion ssag plus guide scope, and a way to mount the camera/lens/guide scope combo. Then you are gold. Image away.

Wow I have a 6d and a 70d and was thinking about trying to get into astro with a similar budget. I did some research and had a tough time. I was thinking t4i converted to full spectrum astronomik filters and a tracking polar mount thing to take longer than 20 sec shots. I thought this would cost about 1000 plus filters. It seemed that I mig.ht be able to take photos of nebula and the Milky Way and have some fun with IR. however I wasn't sure if this were true so I gave up for now.

Figured I could use 300 2.8 for nebula and 14 2.8 for wide field.

I'm going to bump this thread just a bit to see if anyone has ideas. With the refurbs going on sale I could buy a camera for conversion for less...though obviously the benefit of warranty is negated.

Luxx wrote in post #17655579
Wow I have a 6d and a 70d and was thinking about trying to get into astro with a similar budget. I did some research and had a tough time. I was thinking t4i converted to full spectrum astronomik filters and a tracking polar mount thing to take longer than 20 sec shots. I thought this would cost about 1000 plus filters. It seemed that I mig.ht be able to take photos of nebula and the Milky Way and have some fun with IR. however I wasn't sure if this were true so I gave up for now.

Figured I could use 300 2.8 for nebula and 14 2.8 for wide field.

the 300mm f2.8 is a killer astro imaging lens even wide open. This lens will allow you to really utilize some photons. You can start out with the 6D, Hisayoshi Kato uses an unmodded 6D and it is so sensitive that it picks up a good bit of hydrogen alpha without modification, though modded it would improve by about 45%. Here is my advice.

My guess is that you will not want to stop at shooting the milky way, the star adventurer can do milkyway just fine.

When you want to do 300s+ exposures, an autoguided equatorial mount is the way to go.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qFMH​b7

with that said, spend $15 for a membership to astromart.com
Get a used celestron avx with polarscope under $ 700 and an autoguide package http://www.telescope.c​om …uider-Package/p/99631.uts

then get a dual saddle vixen mount so you can mount the lens and autoguider side by side http://www.opticstar-ccd.com …opes.asp?p=0_10​_5_1_8_550

with this setup you can do full on imaging, much longer exposures with perfectly round stars unobtainable with a simple tracker.

You could easily do this under $1,500. Actually if you could find a good used CG5-GT with polar scope you could do this for under $1,000.
Back when I started I pulled it off for under $1,000.. it can be done easily if you buy everything used. When using astromart just look at ratings, if they are reputable, sell alot, and have a perfect score you can get some great deals.

calypsob wrote in post #17658062
the 300mm f2.8 is a killer astro imaging lens even wide open. This lens will allow you to really utilize some photons. You can start out with the 6D, jon rista uses an unmodded 6D and it is so sensitive that it picks up a good bit of hydrogen alpha without modification, though modded it would improve by about 45%. Here is my advice.

My guess is that you will not want to stop at shooting the milky way, the star adventurer can do milkyway just fine.

When you want to do 300s+ exposures, an autoguided equatorial mount is the way to go.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qFMH​b7 The Lagoon and Trifid Nebula reprocess from summer 2014 by Wes Schwarz, on Flickr

Stunning!
One day I will get into astro-photography I know it, it's inevitable

Van Gogh wrote in post #17658147
Stunning!
One day I will get into astro-photography I know it, it's inevitable

Thank you very much. It really is a rewarding hobby with many challenges.

I strongly suggest you check out the Cloudy Nights forum. It is dedicated to astronomy and has a dedicated forum just for astro photography.

Best place to ask questions like this and you will be amazed at how much information you will receive.

Hey guys one question, sorry for hijacking this thread frayne.
Is there a good recommended website to check sky conditions for shooting at specific locations? (like light pollution levels, visibility, clouds, etc ...).
I found an app called "Stellarium" that shows sky objects movement/location but it doesn't really show sky conditions ...

Down here the NWS (national weather service) predicts sky cover, humidity and a few other things that they put on a graph looking out 48 hours or so. I just plug in my location and find the forecast for that area, from there I can link to the graph.

In addition to stellarium, I use an iOS app called Photo Pills that does a great job predicting sun, moon and Milky Way position.

NWS graph example.

http://forecast.weathe​r.gov …nglish&FcstType​=graphical

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #17660799
NWS graph example.

http://forecast.weathe​r.gov …nglish&FcstType​=graphical

Thanks for the link!

Van Gogh wrote in post #17660802
Thanks for the link!

Sure thing. I use it all the time, and it works just fine on my phone. Hopefully you Canucks have a similar service.