Manual settings for canon 1100D?

[asteele3]

What exposure settings would I need to have to get images of stars? I went out tonight but the images weren't fully dark!

How long do you think I need of exposures and what sort?

[yesyes]

I think we need a little more info.

Are you using a telescope attached to the camera or just a lens? what's the focal length of the scope/lens? What object are you trying to image?

[Mr TamiyaCowboy]

as yesyes has asked. telescope type / lens type

Moon : bright old begger in the sky. a full moon is very bright, same goes for a half moon and quater. so you need a fairly fast shutter speed ( exposure )1/100 to 1-4000

stars and deeper sky objects are dull objects and require a longer shutter. 30 seconds would be a start point all the way upto an hour.

some of the cameras settings will not work ie aperture, this is fixed when you have a telescope fitted. the aperture is the telescope focal length devided by the telescopes mirror size ( 300mm / 76mm = aperture F3.9). it is always handy to know how fast/slow your telescope is.

[asteele3]

I haven't got a telescope but just a camera on it's own and a tripod which is sturdy and cost me about £50!

So for deep sky objects, I'd need a low number f/5 and lower? My camera has F/4 I think. Just doing 10 second exposure has enabled me to see a lot more stars than I'd normally see with a spotting scope or just my eyes!

The first image is of a 231 second exposure of my back garden when it was fully pitch black!

The second was a short star trail exposure which looks ok

The third is quite a cool image with strange but vivid colours and the moon, Mars, Regulus and loads of stars are spotted!

[jgs001]

I'm gonna guess you're using the kit lens, EFS 18-55, f/3.5-5.6.. The range of f/ numbers is the wide open settings at different focal lengths, so at 18mm, it's f/3.5 and at 55mm, it's f/5.6.

Have a look at

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-tips-tricks-techniques/73737-basic-widefield-camera-tripod.html

[Mr TamiyaCowboy]

deep sky objects will require a tracking mount to be honest with you. but using a tripod you can capture Orions nebula

as john says, sounds like an ef-s 18-55mm none IS lens you have.

point camera to sky, set camera to 18mm and leave it at f3.6 - f4.2 or around that area. shot for around 35/40seconds.

view picture on screen, now zoom into a largish star does it look like a rugby ball shape and is stretching ? if yes you need to shoot for say 25-30 seconds. keep doing this until you notice no rugby ball shape and or stretching. this is your magic number where stars are perfect.

to shoot nebulas like orion takes a tripod and careful movement between shots to keep the object centred. take a good 10-20 shots then stick them in registax/deepsky stacker.

with my 90-300mm set at 90 i can shoot for no more than 3 seconds before my stars stretch and look rugby shaped. your lens should see less trails at longer exposure than my lens.