Canon 550D EOS first impressions

[squeaky]

Wow!

Estimated delivery date was next Tuesday but it arrived on Saturday (yesterday) and I took it out almost immediately to see if I could get Prime Focus etc.

Worked a treat!

Only needed to swap the standard EP holder for a short one when on Prime Focus; everything else (Barlows - 2x Standard, 2x short focal length, 3x Standard, 5x Powermate, and lenses 17, 13, 10, 8 mm) all focussed with the standard EP holder.

As I upped magnification, and so reduced the amount of light being collected, I needed to increase ISO - and, happy days - the live view followed the increase and so appears to be showing me a view close to the image that will be saved. This is in daylight tests, so I've yet to try this with AP. Unfortunately, exposure compensation is not available when in Manual mode, but it is in others - and one thing that I found was that if I use live view in manual and get a focus; then change the setting to Full Auto and take the shot - it takes the photo and sorts out exposure and ISO etc while maintaining the focus from the manual setting. So that might be another thing to trial in AP.

Then had a quick play with the EOS and was very impressed. Makes life very easy. Again this was daylight stuff, so I've yet to try it in AP. But it's looking good.

Finally I started actually reading the manual. There's a whole bunch of stuff that can be set up and I've done most of the "standards" ready for AP and then there are a lot more possible settings that will (not/maybe) help too. So there are going to be lots of trial shots to do. Most, I hope, can be checked using the EOS without the need to take images and find out what I got.

All in all a great start. Very easy and very pleasing.

The only thing I failed on, after taking RAW + JPG, was getting the RAW images across to the hard drive for PS to work on. I "think" I need to use the supplied Photo Editor thingy to do that - and, speaking of which, that's pretty impressive too! More to learn here.

So... who's in charge of the weather control button?

Oh, and the camera set up nicely in Stellarium so I put together a shot (using M57) which shows me the expected FOV (red rectangle) against my nearest EP view (blue circle) which is my 32mm lens. So first chance I get I'll start taking shots of M57. Not only will this allow me to calibrate my FOV but I "should" be able to image every star in that view (down to approx mag 16.5) - so that will be another check.

[Steve Ward]

The files are automatically saved in DPP as you go , i've found no real benefit in shooting in RAW + L , you just take up more storage space to start.

Shoot in RAW and you can then convert in DPP to TIFF files or Jpeg as you require.

Steve.

[squeaky]

Yes boss

[Steve Ward]

Sorry Uncle Squeaky , wasn't trying to teach egg-sucking.......

Been looking to get some practice in for the occultation in a weeks time but it's not looking good , haven't seen the Moon for about 2 weeks , let alone Jupiter.

Still hopeful but not exactly confident , unless forecast changes dramatically in the next couple of days I shall be staying round this way I think...

[Steve Ward]

P.S. That's a fine collection of limericks...

[squeaky]

P.S. That's a fine collection of limericks...

? the ones on my website ?

[Steve Ward]

Yep.......

[squeaky]

Hmm... awful viewing night last night but nevertheless I was out practising.

It turned out that I couldn't get Prime Focus at astronomical distances (unlike my daylight test at one hundred yards) unless I used a Barlow.

Since I was using Polaris as my first star I decided not to bother aligning; esp since practically every time I chose a star to view a cloud decided to go visit it and have a chat. Took some calibration shots and played with settings. Then the cloud really set in, a full 100%. Decided I'd try the trick of not quite fully extending the tube to see if it would work to give me a standard Prime Focus. Unfortunately, by the time the cloud cleared it was beginning to get light again, there was still a lot of haze, and we'd crossed the dew point with a vengeance - so that went right out the window. Oh well, another day.

Anyway - too early for sensible viewing/imaging, with no alignment or tracking etc I got the image on the left. The right hand one is that same image equalised to show up the faint stars and compared with the Stellarium view.

What price a clear DARK sky, proper alignment, lots of subs, and some fine tuning on the camera settings?

[Steve Ward]

Don't want much do you............

I'm still amazed by the difference in the background this time of year from the start of a run to the end , even a half hour session shows up .

Guess that's the joy of being an impatient so and so and not being able to wait til darker times....

[squeaky]

Well I'm not exactly expecting stellar results here - this all about practice. Setting up. Alignment and tracking. Camera settings and post processing.

I have much to learn.

Hopefully, by the time winter skies arrive I'll be more or less ready to go for some decent results. He sez.