Where to start with the gear I have, and what to purchase in the future?

Hello.
I'm wondering if anyone would be willing to pass on some advice. I've been shooting the moon and have had a great time doing it. So much so that I'd like to continue in this area of photography (I mainly shoot wildlife & nature landscapes). So, with the gear I'm currently using, I'm wondering if anyone would have some advice on what other sort of things I could be experimenting with in terms of astrophotography?

- Canon 30D
- tripod
- cable release
- 500mm telephoto lens (F6.3)
- 1.5x TC for 500mm lens
- 300mm telephoto lens (F5.x)
- 50mm lens (F2.8)

I'd also be interested in suggestions for "extending" my gear for a beginner in this area of photography?

Much appreciated!
k.

Hi there,

With what you've currently got you could investigate shooting some of the Planets. At 750mm it's going to be a bit tricky getting them lined up perhaps, (I know I have trouble with my tripod, but then it's only a cheap one), as they'll be moving pretty quickly, but you could certainly try to get Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. As long as it's clear you'll only want short exposures.

I've got a 50mm f/2.8 and love it for quick shots of the heavens to get constellations and stuff, but it's not quite wide enough really. You only need to expose for 5 ot 10 seconds to get a lot of light in, but then any more than that and star trails will appear.

You could shoot star trails shots of course, but I personally like to go much wider than 50mm...I use my 18-200mm or 10-22mm for these.

If you want to "go deep", then a tracking mount of some sort should be on your shopping list. These start at £50-£100 for basic ones, right up to hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands for top of the range ones. £200 to £400 would get you a pretty decent one, and then you'll be able to track the stars and take very long exposures of star clusters adn galaxies and nabulae and stuff like that. Your 300mm and 500mm lenses will probably be great for many deep sky objects.

Adrena1in wrote in post #7123999
I've got a 50mm f/2.8 and love it for quick shots of the heavens to get constellations and stuff, but it's not quite wide enough really. You only need to expose for 5 ot 10 seconds to get a lot of light in, but then any more than that and star trails will appear.

Actually, I have a 17mm-55mm lens as well, but it's not as fast as my dedicated 50mm, but I guess it'd work. What are we looking at in terms of aperture/exposure time/ISO for constellation shots?

Adrena1in wrote in post #7123999
If you want to "go deep", then a tracking mount of some sort should be on your shopping list. These start at £50-£100 for basic ones, right up to hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands for top of the range ones. £200 to £400 would get you a pretty decent one, and then you'll be able to track the stars and take very long exposures of star clusters adn galaxies and nabulae and stuff like that. Your 300mm and 500mm lenses will probably be great for many deep sky objects.

Mmmmmm, now we're talking! This is what really interests me (though, going to start small and work my way up as I get more into it) — any suggestions on a any models or at least decent names for a starter (not bottom end, but something good for a beginner) mount? I haven't a clue when it comes to this stuff!

Thanks again!
Kristin.

theboyk wrote in post #7124462
Actually, I have a 17mm-55mm ... What are we looking at in terms of aperture/exposure time/ISO for constellation shots?

Personally I set the ISO as high as possible and the aperture as wide as possible, to gather loads of light. After a second or two you'll capture the brighter stars. At 17mm you'll be able to expose for about 20 seconds or so before star-trailing appears, but you'll capture more stars than you can see with the naked eye. The Milky Way will even start to appear.

theboyk wrote in post #7124462
...any suggestions on a any models or at least decent names for a starter ...

Only ones I have any experience of are the SkyWatcher EQ1 and EQ5. In fact I don't know for sure that my current EQ5 is actually a SkyWatcher. It seems to be quite a generic mount that comes in several flavours. Sometimes called a CG-5. It's perhaps overkill if you're not looking at getting a telescope, because it'll take something like 15kg of weight on it. The EQ2, EQ3 and EQ4 are the intermediate mounts,, probably each slightly better than the last, but each a bit more expensive.

Equatorial Mounts have two axes of rotation, and you can either get manual dials to turn these, or, preferably, for astrophotography, you get a motor drive. Getting a mount with a single motor drive as a starter would be sufficient, because it's only in one axis that the stars move, called Right Ascension, or RA. As long as the mount is aligned properly on the north or south celestial pole, the RA drive will follow the stars exactly. (And as a matter of fact, at wide angles, the alignment doesn't have to be that accurate for good tracking. I shot the heavens at 28mm once, for 60s exposures, and turned my mount manually, and it wasn't that well aligned, but the images were okay.)

I realise I'm rambling.

Adrena1in wrote in post #7124768
Personally I set the ISO as high as possible and the aperture as wide as possible, to gather loads of light. After a second or two you'll capture the brighter stars. At 17mm you'll be able to expose for about 20 seconds or so before star-trailing appears, but you'll capture more stars than you can see with the naked eye. The Milky Way will even start to appear.

Very cool! And I assume, since you're shooting with such a high ISO, that's where the stacking for noise removal comes into play (though, just on a trip, without any tracking, I guess that would be hard since the stars would be moving for the next shot...). So, when tripod mounted, I guess it's finding that sweet spot between ISO and noise?

Adrena1in wrote in post #7124768
I realise I'm rambling.

Thanks for the info on the mounts — perfect! And ramble away!!! Please, this is very interesting! Do you have any of your photos posted anywhere? Would love to check them out!

k.

With your current gear, dark skies will be you biggest ally for deep sky imaging. Shooting widefield with your 50mm will yield nice results at under 10 seconds exp. @ ISO 800. Since you're limited to such short exposure, the darker the skies the better. There are light pollution filters available that can reduce the LP but there's no substitute for dark skies when shooting long exposures. I travel about 45 minutes to shoot with darker skies, makes a huge difference in quality and ease of processing.

Moving to a German equatorial mount or some other form of clock drive or manual (i.e. barn door tracker) system will allow you to track the night sky in sidereal(rate at which Earth rotates). You will need to learn the polar alignment process for said rigs which seems complex at first but will become second nature over time. Many german equatorial mounts come with an on-board data base(GoTo) or library of objects that upon selection will automatically move the telescope/mount directly to the object of your choice. This is a time saving feature and one that becomes very valuable when photographing objects not visible to our eyes in the camera viewfinder. The GoTo will get you very close and a long exposure test shot will help you compose the shot.

You might want to start taking time to learn the night sky now. It will be very valuable to you when it comes time to perform an alignment and to help with locating objects. Binoculars are a fun way to look around and become familiar with the brighter objects. Another good inexpensive item is called a Planisphere. It's a sky chart that is set up on a rotating dial configuration. It'll allow you to dial in the sky layout over your head at any given time or date during the year.

I'm Mac based as well and have my MacBook Pro partitioned (Bootcamp) with Windows XP on a small portion of the drive so that I can run stacking software. I do final processing on the Mac side in PS.

Thanks Steve!

The location that I'll be doing most of my night-shooting is considered a "dark sky" zone, so that sounds good! 8) And I've been using a Mac-application (StarryNight) to get used to objects/finding objects in the night sky this past summer. So, really looking forward to this coming summer now!!!

Thanks again,
Kristin.

Thanks Steve!

The location that I'll be doing most of my night-shooting is considered a "dark sky" zone, so that sounds good! 8) And I've been using a Mac-application (StarryNight) to get used to objects/finding objects in the night sky this past summer. So, really looking forward to this coming summer now!!!

Thanks again,
Kristin.

You're welcome Kristin. The Planisphere suggestion was for nights that you may not have a laptop along or don't feel like dragging it outside while you look around. Some of them even have some deep sky objects on them too. Discovery Stores carry them if you ever need one.

Starry Night's a good one to have along. It's good for planning a night of shooting.

Thanks Steve —*I'm going to go see if I can grab one this weekend!

One tip about a Planisphere. They'll look strange when held in front of you like you would a book. You have to hold them skyward to have an accurate look at the layout. A small red flashlight will help preserve your night vision.

theboyk wrote in post #7124953
And I assume, since you're shooting with such a high ISO, that's where the stacking for noise removal comes into play (though, just on a trip, without any tracking, I guess that would be hard since the stars would be moving for the next shot...). So, when tripod mounted, I guess it's finding that sweet spot between ISO and noise?

If you're not tracking, then exposures are generally going to be short enough to have minimal noise I would say, but yes, at 17mm you'd probably find ISO 800 or even 400 give a better image when exposing for 20 to 30 seconds.

As for the stars moving, the stacking programme I use, called Deep Sky Stacker, (FREE download), is clever in that it can move and rotate each frame in order to line up all the stars. When I first started out I shot 39 x 30s frames of the Milky Way, 18mm, over the course of 50 minutes or so. No tracking, just a fixed tripod sat on the bench in my garden. The stars moved loads in that time, (almost 1/24th of their journey around the earth!), yet Deep Sky Stacker successfully aligned all the frames and produced a satisfying (for me) result.

Can I just say 'Thanks' to all those who're giving such good advice. I'm plagued with light pollution where I live (sometimes it's so bad you can't see the Sun!). But I'm off to Southern Africa in June and I'm planning on taking some shots of the night sky then. I'll be mainly interested in the Milky Way and constellation shots (no tracking). Which of the following would be most appropriate -

10-22, 50 1.8 or 24-105?

hollis_f wrote in post #7161639
I'll be mainly interested in the Milky Way and constellation shots (no tracking). Which of the following would be most appropriate -

10-22, 50 1.8 or 24-105?

If it were me, I'd go with the 10-22. That's what I have, and it's great for Milky Way shots. Here's a link to a crumby quality shot from my 10-22mm, but it at least gives you an idea of it's angle of view.

http://img293.imagesha​ck.us …145/milkywaywid​esmfo6.jpg

Bright star just below centre to the left is Vega in Lyra. Bit left of centre is Cygnus. Bit right of centre is Cassiopeia, right a bit more is Persues and the Double-Cluster, diagonally up and right from the centre is Andromeda and M31, The Andromeda Galaxy, bit furter right is M33. One 30s shot at ISO1600 f/3.5.

The 50mm will gather a lot more light, but has a limited field of view, so not always great for the constellations as they can be huge. Here's Cygnus shot with the 50mm f/1.8, 90s, ISO1600, tracking of course, otherwise the trails would be huge. Again, poor quality mostly.

http://img401.imagesha​ck.us/img401/7673/cygn​uskr6.jpg

I just about got in the four stars that make up the Cross in Cygnus. And here's Cassiopeia, 30s this time. I like this one...I love how sharp the stars are near the centre...shame about the bottom right. Not sure why that was happening.

http://img111.imagesha​ck.us …/7608/cassiopei​asmqb0.jpg

(The 50mm is only tiny...I'd take the 10-22mm and 50mm if it were me actually!)

24-104 I'm not familiar with, but 24mm would still be wide enough for most constellations I'm sure.

Adrena1in wrote in post #7162105
If it were me, I'd go with the 10-22. That's what I have, and it's great for Milky Way shots. Here's a link to a crumby quality shot from my 10-22mm, but it at least gives you an idea of it's angle of view.

http://img293.imagesha​ck.us …145/milkywaywid​esmfo6.jpg


(The 50mm is only tiny...I'd take the 10-22mm and 50mm if it were me actually!)

Wow! That's the sort of thing I want.

OK, the 10-22 is definitely coming. And, as you say, the 50mm is small enough to take anyway.

Hope you don't mind, but I had a play with your image in LightRoom and a bit of Colour Noise Reduction, followed by increasing the blacks really helps with the contrast.

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