DSLR recomendation

[bobo99]

Good evening,

It's a cloudy night and I'm pondering a DSLR purchase to hook up to my 8" newtonian f/5. What do I want to image?... "everything". however Bright galaxies, nebula, and the milkyway, mainly.

I will be wanting a DSLR that can still function as a regular camera, so not the Hutech modified version of the Canons (yet).

Originally I settled on the Canon 60D, however after reading more and more I've honed in on the Canon 6D. I don't know what I decided on first, the budget, or the camera, but the 1500$ price point would be a maximum. However the canon 70D just came out, and there is a new CCD chip that canon just announced.

So any thoughts or pointers that you have for this purchase? I havn't really been considering the NIkon's with their "semi"-raw files, and the work around for that. Canon's low light seems to be a winner.

Thanks!

[baggywrinkle]

I am well and truly in the Canon camp.

I have the Canon 400D and now a 650D (mod'd). The 650 is very very good and I still like my old 400D, it just does not have live view.

I also use Backyard EOS, this a a very reasonably priced downlload specific for Canon camera. You get set up a nights shooting program, it has a live focus function which can be monitored on your PC and is very easy to use.

The 650D is light enough and balancing the OTA fore and aft is easy, it does not pull on the focuser on my ED80.

[bobo99]

Thanks for the "Backyard EOS" recommendation. That program looks like a necissity!

[CC_Japan]

Between these two cameras, I'd go with the 6D. It has outstanding high ISO performance and is comparatively light-weight for a full-frame body.

One big issue (at least for terrestrial photography), however, is the rather pathetic auto-focus layout. Granted the D600 or Sony's A99 also have pretty tiny auto-focus arrays (consisting of 39 and 19 auto focus points) that look lost on the full-frame, but the 6D's array is not only small, but also made up of only 11 auto focus points. To me that's a deal breaker.