Daf1983

A couple of clear nights gave me chance to try out my new Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm lens. Managed to capture pleiades and Orion belt with m42. My other equipment include the omegon minitrack lx2 and a canon 600d. Pleiades was taken at iso800, and I took about 45 light frames, which were 25 seconds each, also took 15 dark and bias frames. Orion was taken at iso 1600, light frames 10 seconds x100 along with dark and bias again. Both pictures were stacked in dss and processed with siril and gimp. Although far from perfect, as a complete novice, I'm quite happy with the results. I'm also pleased with the performance of the lens, considering what I paid for it. Although it does need stopping down to f5.6 to get decent results. My main issue at the minute seems to be how noisy the images are. I assume I need to up the total exposure time to improve this? Any suggestions and constructive criticism are welcome.😁

A cheapish vintage lens to try out with my canon 600d and omegon minitrack. Waiting on an adapter to fit to the canon now

I used my new minitrack lx2 for the first time last night. Managed to get a decent shot o Pleiades, using my Canon 600d and a pentax 40-80mm zoom lens at 80mm. Took 25 exposures at 45 seconds each, and stacked them in deep sky stacker. I was impressed how well tracking was, even though I found polar alignment very hard with just a tube!(I think I might have fluked it this time) I think i might invest in a laser to make pa easier.

I'm in the process of building a barn door tracker. Why do you use 2500 in your calculation for exposure time?(as opposed to 500).

I have been wondering the same. I have very little experience with camera lenses, but have done a bit of research online. From what I've read, the super takumar f3.5 is pretty decent wide open, whereas if you went for something faster and cheaper like a pentacon f2.8, you would have to stop that down a fair bit to have any decent images, and therefore defeats the object of getting a faster lens. There is a super takumer f2.5, but it's much more expensive and harder to get hold of. I still haven't made a purchase yet, but it's my birthday next month, so my dear wife has promised me a new lens for the occasion😁 At the moment, I'm set on either the super takumar f3.5 or a carl zeiss 135 f3.5, unless somebody can convince me otherwise

Hi, I got mine from Cygnus Astro Covers, which make bespoke covers for a very reasonable price👍 Regards Dafydd

I've bought a few bst starguiders from them aswell, very good service👍

I just googled them, the reviews on trustpilot are a bit worrying😳

Thanks again guys, I will definitley have a look in charity shops etc in hope of picking up a bargain!

Thanks for your reply. Which vintage lenses have you found are good for astro?

Wow, great shot👍

Do you have a tracking mount?

That's my plan eventually! What setup do you use for imaging if you don't mind me asking?

That's what I thought. Thanks for the help👍

Hi. I have taken a video of jupiter and saturn with my dob and stacked the frames in registax, which worked fairly well. It's hard work with a non tracking telescope though😏

As I said, I'm no expert, but I would give that a go. Like you, I did the processing in gimp, but I mainly just stretched the image with curves and levels. The quality of your skies might also have an impact. I took mine from my garden which is bortle 4/5

Fair enough, so going from f3.5 to f2.8 won't make much difference? I think those are the two most common versions

Thanks everyone for the advice, very much appreciated! I have one adapter pentax lenses already, but I thinks it for the k mount rather than the m42, so I will probably need another adaper. From the comments, it seems like a decent option at the price. However, there seems to be a lot of different versions of this lens, does anyone know if some are more suitable than others for astro? Is it just a case of the faster the better?

How do you find it?

I was wondering if anyone on here has some experience of using vintage lenses with a dslr? I've been experimenting with my canon 600d and a tripod with moderate success. At present, I only have two zoom lenses (the kit 18-55mm and a pentax 40-80mm), and want to see how I get on with a longer focal length prime lens, probably a 135mm. I'm not really in a position to be spending hundred of pounds on a new lens, so have been looking into vintage lenses. I have heard good things about the Super takumer 135mm f3.5 and the carl zeiss jena 135mm, which can be picked up for about £50 on ebay. Does anyone have experience using these lenses for astrophotography, or are there better alternatives in the same price range? I understand that I'm limited to pretty short exposures at this focal length untracked, but I want to see what I can achieve before investing in a tracking mount. Thanks Dafydd

Hello. I'm a complete novice aswell, so I'm not sure how much I can help you. However, I did something similar this week with similar equipment(canon 600d and the 18-55mm lens). I shot 10 seconds exposures at iso3200 and stacked 30 frames in deep sky stacker, along with 15 dark and bias frames. Not sure if my results are any better to be honest, and some cloud have crept into the shot. Was yours a single exposure?

Thanks for the advice. I was wondering if I could push the exposure a little longer, but opted for 3 seconds after inputting my camera model/lens/target etc into the NPF formula on this website. https://www.sahavre.fr/tutoriels/astrophoto/34-regle-npf-temps-de-pose-pour-eviter-le-file-d-etoiles Not sure if there's any merit to this formula, but a tutorial on youtube suggested it.

This is my first attempt imaging M31, with a Canon 600d, tripod, and a cheap old pentax 40-80mm lens I picked up on ebay for £15. I took 300 light frames, 3 second exposures at an iso of 3200. I also took 100 dark frames and about 50 bias. Stacked in DSS and edited in GIMP. This is my first attempt at astrophotography and also at using software such as GIMP, so it's a steep learning curve. I plan on getting a star tracker eventually, but wanted to see what I could achieve with this simple set up first. I understand that it's nowhere near as impressive as most images posted on here, but I'm quite happy with it as a first attempt, considering the obvious limitations of my equipment. Any constructive criticism would be welcome, as I don't really have an idea what I'm doing when it comes to post-processing. 😬

Hi rory. I'm neither looking for a first scope, nor a wise head I'm afraid.😉 Only started this hobby this year and have a 200p dob which I'm really happy with. Your videos are great, and I have tried taking videos of the planets (with varying success) after watching your one of them. Anyway, thanks for the great content👍 Regards Dafydd

Aaa, makes sense now. Thanks for the help👍