freelander86 Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 My first DSLR arrived and Im still figuring it out. Cant wait to use it for some Astro photos.Any tips or advice for this camera? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RikM Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 Don't forget to take the lens cap off Good choice of camera. Are you planning on using it with camera lenses or at prime focus on your telescope? You may struggle to reach focus with it on the Astromaster unless you use a barlow. If you mount the camera on top of the telescope and use the 18-55 kit lens to get some tracked widefield images, you should be laughing. Try set the lens on 18mm and the aperture to about f4.5 and take some exposures of about a minute. You may have to experiment with how long an exposure you can take before star trails start to be a pain. Good polar alignment and new batteries for your motor will help with this. If you take 10 - 20 images and load them into deep sky stacker, you will be amazed at what you can achieve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinker1947 Posted September 1, 2012 Share Posted September 1, 2012 Liveview its ok on bright stars, but if there aren't any it will show the really dim stars, the focus how ever does require to be very close, half a turn on a 10 - 1 focusor will see a star appear and totally fade again , i picked up a spare battery from Amazon cost about £5 and is as good as the supplied one... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronaldo999 Posted September 2, 2012 Share Posted September 2, 2012 A good choice with any canon, best way i found with my 450D was to experiment and just play around with settings. You will soon get the feel for whats right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelander86 Posted September 2, 2012 Author Share Posted September 2, 2012 Thanks for the replies. Interesting comments about using it with the lens kit on the telescope - didn't even know this was possible. I have a T piece adapter but think that only works with no lense.as you say will have to experiment.Any issues using bulb mode? How long for a good shot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RikM Posted September 2, 2012 Share Posted September 2, 2012 Depending on your target, about 4 hours worth of 5 - 10 minute exposures stacked for a good deep sky image. I guess you will be limited to about 30 sec shots initially. You want to try for an hour's worth of total exposure time to get a nice image.Your best bet is to see if you can reach focus and then take some shots of the moon. Something like 1/100 sec at ISO 200. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizibilder Posted September 2, 2012 Share Posted September 2, 2012 One thing you will need, unless going directly for computer control of the camera, is a remote shutter release. If you don't use one then the vibration caused by you touching the camera will leave its tell tale wobbles on your photo's. A programmable one: http://www.amazon.co...N/dp/B004GJ5S7Q is the one to get. This will allow you (on bulb setting) to make exposures of any time length and as many exposures as you want, including a delay between exposures. Much better than standing there manually clicking away for a couple of hours. I assume you are working unguided, if so take 30 sec or 1min exposures to start with and take as many as you can (60-100) as there will be quite a few wasters to start with. Then stack and process them. All the software you need for image processing is available as freeware to get you started.By the way take RAW+JPEG images. You can look at the JPEGS to check your images but you process only the RAW files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelander86 Posted September 3, 2012 Author Share Posted September 3, 2012 Thanks I will try these suggestions.whats the advantage with RAW? Can I only stack with RAW or will JPEG work too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizibilder Posted September 3, 2012 Share Posted September 3, 2012 JPEG compresses the image (to make the file size much smaller) which leads to data loss. RAW is "as it comes off the sensor" and all your data is intact. A bit oversimplified but that's about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RikM Posted September 3, 2012 Share Posted September 3, 2012 I'm not sure if you can use calibration frames with jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gina Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 One point... With the latest Canons (such as the 1100D) you need the latest Beta version of DSS for stacking as the RAW format changed slightly between the Digic 3 and Digic 4 image processors( in the camera). With older versions of DSS you get just a central vertical strip in your stacked image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freelander86 Posted September 5, 2012 Author Share Posted September 5, 2012 what is the name of the software that you can use to control your camera from a laptop/pc? Have seen it mentioned before...I've also purchased a wireless shutter release Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronaldo999 Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 I believe the software comes on the cd that came with the camera, at least it did with my 450D. It allows you to set exposure times with pauses in-between. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RikM Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 I use Astrophotography Tool (APT) http://www.ideiki.com/astro/Default.aspxLovely bit of software. The demo is free and is quite functional. The full version costs only a few pounds and well worth it IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auntystatic Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 +1 for apt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Si Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 One point... With the latest Canons (such as the 1100D) you need the latest Beta version of DSS for stacking as the RAW format changed slightly between the Digic 3 and Digic 4 image processors( in the camera). With older versions of DSS you get just a central vertical strip in your stacked image.Ohhhhhh! That might explain something to why I was having issues.Liking the RAW + JPG idea too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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