Sky Imaging with Canon 650D

[dtb194]

Hi,

I have a Canon 650D and was hoping to take some half decent pictures of stars and perhaps the milky way. I have a tripod. Was wondering whether it's possible to take a one shot picture (move onto stacking later) and what type of settings I should be using?

Thanks

Dave

[JamesF]

I'd just jump right in with the stacking, to be honest. It's really not that hard.

James

[JB80]

I agree, it's not too much harder to take a dozen shots than one. You can always hold on to the images until you are ready.

A lot will depend on what your sky conditions are, if you have decent skies then things become easier.

Also what lens you have will make a big difference in the length of exposure you can take, for example if you have say a 50mm lens then your best bet is an 8 second exposure but if it's an 18mm lens then 25 seconds is doable.

I'd also start at around ISO400 to 800 depending on light pollution.

Do you have a remote shutter cable?

If not then pushing the shutter may cause a vibration of the tripod so you can set the camera to delay for a few seconds after you have pressed the shutter.

[Jannis]

While you Can take a single shoot with that camera and a decent bright and sharp lens, i have to agree that it's better to get into stacking right away.

DeepSkyStacker is rather easy to use. While it have so many options it's complicated to understand everything even after 4 years of use, it's so easy to get into the basics and get an Ok result that it's done in an hour.

[VigdisVZ]

Yes and no. Do you want to shoot just wide star fields or do you want to make a landscape picture with the milky way above?I started out without stacking and just did wide field images with my Nikon. I learned how to set the exposure and ISO and see how the aperture affects the image quality first.

I would look at taking a wide field image with the horizon as context, and using up to about 15sec of exposure, then trying different ISO settings.

Stacking comes in when you have no ground reference points that moves in relation to the sky, and just want to take star field pictures if you know what I mean.

But I would always recommend doing it simple at first. Learn to master your camera and get a feeling for exposure, ISO and aperture, and start building from there.

Edit: In regards to the remote shutter thing, you dont need a remote release, it helps but you can always use a delay exposure, or use the "hat trick".

[LukeSkywatcher]

Stacking using DSS is so simple,its worth doing it from the get go. Its probably better to take many short exposures and stack them rather then a single long exposure. It depends on what level of light pollution you have in your area. Play around with different ISO settings til you find one that works for you and take it from there.

[dtb194]

Great, thanks for all the info, I'll post my results!

[lensman57]

Hi,

I have a Canon 650D and was hoping to take some half decent pictures of stars and perhaps the milky way. I have a tripod. Was wondering whether it's possible to take a one shot picture (move onto stacking later) and what type of settings I should be using?

Thanks

Dave

Hi,

Stacking is the easy part, just download the free DSS, follow a couple of the tutorials on the net and the DSS does everything for you. The devil is getting the detail out of the stacked image, now that is when the fun begins. Just get your focus right and take 20 or so short captures of the milky way, start by using a fast lens, 100 mm @f2.8 will be fine, high ISO 1600 and 1s exposures and see what it looks like, increase the exposure till you start to get star trails and then back off again. take a lot of frames like this, the more the better, about 20 or 30 will do but over that number you'd get pronounced rotation as your mount ( tripod ) unguided . These will build up a decent S/N ratio and help with the noise from the sensor. Post capture processing is another matter. Gooluck.

A.G

[Russe]

After stacking the photos you will be in for the long deep fall into the astrophotography abyss...

Why don't you read "Make every photon count" - tells you all you need to know at the start!