Planetary imaging with Canon 600D/T3i

[Gohan75]

Anyone used this DSLR cam or equivalent for planetary/lunar imaging? Ive been reading that the T2i has a better frame rate @60fps although a lower resolution (640x480) as opposed to 1080p, any opinion on which is better? 

Obviously im not buying this cam with planetary imaging in mind but its a nice extra to have the option along with deepsky imaging and i just wondered whether or not it was any good?

Also i will be using it with an Equinox ED80 @ f6.25, will i need a high magnification barlow or powermate? As i only have a 2x barlow at the minute. 

Thanks

[todd8137]

I tried this with my 600d waste of time to be honest might be ok for the moon but with the 80mm might be pointless am sure some,one some where my have got,results but I did not

Pat

[nmoushon]

Technically you can use the Canon in video mod to cpture planetary images. I'm not sure how well it works compared to dedicated plantary cameras but I would think it would work better than a modded web cam. I've never tried so I'm only guessing here.

Not on to your scope. The Equinox Ed80 is a great scope, I use one, but for planetary imaging I think you will find it very lacking, even with the full FL. You will NEED to use a barlow of some type to get any decent definition out of the planets...well really you would only be able to hopefully get anything from Jupiter or Saturn. The rest of the planets are just to small for that small little frac. Now you could jump up to a large barlow like a 4x powermate but at that point I dont know how well your images would come out as you are really pushing the scope. In fact I'm not sure if you could even get focus with a 4x barlow or not, I've never tried or heard of someone doing but could be wrong.

[nmoushon]

Does your Dob track? If so you would have much beter results using that. Still not sure on the quality you'd get from the camera itself but the aperture and FL of your Dob would suite the situation much better.

[todd8137]

The main prob I found was image scale ,once converted from cannons crazy file system to some thing that can work with stacking software was lossy in quality ect if the dob is a tracking one as stated above you may get some thing to use

Pat

[Alien 13]

I have seen some very good images of Jupiter with the ED80 i think it was done with a combo of x2 and x3 barlows i have tried it with my canon 650d and ZS71 scope with a std x2 SW barlow and got a result with a couple of single shots the image was tiny but better than expected at 400mm FL.

Alan

[todd8137]

Where are these images could you post a link to them ?

Pat

[todd8137]

Alien this,by any chance ? The op,says that these are resized so really they not to scale but it's possible but these are single shots

Pat

[Alien 13]

This is a link to one but there are others if i remember corectly http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/202927-jupiter-io-221113-using-a-c80ed/?hl=ed80+jupiter#entry2148162

Alan

[todd8137]

I will see what scale I get with my 80mm and barlows ,but x5 seems a lot conditions will have to be good

Path

[Alien 13]

I will see what scale,I getaways my scope ,I,stand corrected

Pay

Me too the link i posted was an ED80 but with a planetary camera.

Alan

[todd8137]

I will try my planetry cam with a Barlow ,back to the post tho still it's hard to get planets with a dslr

Pat

[Gohan75]

Thanks for the advise. My dob doesn't track unfortunately perhaps i could guide it by hand if the magnification isnt too high? 

[nmoushon]

Unfortunately Im dont think that would work very well to guide with your hand continually. One thing you can do is instead of taking 2minutes of continual video you could break it down into smaller segments. Say 6x20sec videos. This would allow you to recenter the object after every time. The time would vary with your magnification.

[SJP]

I may be telling you what you already know here, but running a Canon camera in 640x480 Crop mode uses the central 640x480 pixels rather than in 1080P mode which spreads the 1080 pixels across the entire 18Mp sensor (a bit like binning without any actual benefit). Therefore in Crop video mode you get a sizeable "magnification" effect equivalent to approx 8-10x vs the 1080P mode, along with double the frame rate, which is similar to dedicated planetary cameras (the 600D has 4.3um pixels)

As for Canon's compression, I think (you'll need to check!) the 600D is one of Canon's later models which offers either IPB or All-I compression, All-I files are larger but less compressed and so so of much higher quality.

[mitchelln]

You can do imaging with a Canon, but in video mode it does serious binning. So the image scale is small compared to a dedicated planetary cam.

Here is Saturn taken with my Canon 7D on the left and QHY5-II on the right a few days apart. Exactly the same setup for both with a 4x Powermate. The Canon was 1920x1080 and the QHY 1280x1024.

You can see the difference in image size. This is primarily down to the binning as the pixel size for the two cams is nearly the same.

However, if you've got a DSLR then why not use it You can still get some nice shots. I was well happy with the left hand one at the time!

What works especially well is the Moon at full resolution. I put my 7D into sport mode (8fps), take a number of frames and then stack. The results are really nice.

[Owmuchonomy]

Anyone used this DSLR cam or equivalent for planetary/lunar imaging? Ive been reading that the T2i has a better frame rate @60fps although a lower resolution (640x480) as opposed to 1080p, any opinion on which is better? 

Obviously im not buying this cam with planetary imaging in mind but its a nice extra to have the option along with deepsky imaging and i just wondered whether or not it was any good?

Also i will be using it with an Equinox ED80 @ f6.25, will i need a high magnification barlow or powermate? As i only have a 2x barlow at the minute. 

Thanks

I have used both the 600D and 60D for planetary. The advantage is that the 60D runs in true movie crop mode while the 600D doesn't. The 60D also runs at 60fps which is quite good for planetary. As Mitchelln says above, image scale is your enemy and I'm fortunate to image through a 9.25 SCT so I can get the image scale up. Check my Flickr link for examples of my mediocre results.

[Gohan75]

Some great shots there guys. Like Mitchelln says, if i've got one anyway i may as well use it! Good practise if anything else. I have been used to taking individual images of the planets with a 450d so those shots are way beyond what i could achieve doing that. I guess i will have to invest in a planetary cam at a later date but for now the 600d will have to do, its mainly for dso anyway. Its a shame about the image scale as the shots themselves are great.

Thanks for the advice all. 

P.s the powermae x4 a good middle ground magnification or should it be pushed up to 5?

[Gohan75]

And that moon shot is very impressive !

[mitchelln]

Some great shots there guys. Like Mitchelln says, if i've got one anyway i may as well use it! Good practise if anything else. I have been used to taking individual images of the planets with a 450d so those shots are way beyond what i could achieve doing that. I guess i will have to invest in a planetary cam at a later date but for now the 600d will have to do, its mainly for dso anyway. Its a shame about the image scale as the shots themselves are great.

Thanks for the advice all. 

P.s the powermae x4 a good middle ground magnification or should it be pushed up to 5?

The 600D is a good capable camera

I tried 5x and didn't make much difference and you lose even more light. Even with 4x you need very good seeing to get decent shots and focussing get trickier the more power you apply.

And that moon shot is very impressive !

Thanks! On a good clear night you can take single shots and get very good results.

Use a remote release, mirror lockup and the fastest shutter you can. It's also very easy to over expose such a bright object (Jupiter also).

I use my android phone to control my 7D. You can completely control the camera and see the liveview feed. It's brilliant. The app is called DSLR Controller.

[Owmuchonomy]

..and if you combine your 600D with Backyard EOS you can get more out of it I believe as it gives you more live zoom options than the camera's own software. There is a good but very long thread on this topic 'Planetary imaging with a DSLR' or similar title.

[Owmuchonomy]

..and if you combine your 600D with Backyard EOS you can get more out of it I believe as it gives you more live zoom options than the camera's own software. There is a good but very long thread on this topic 'Planetary imaging with a DSLR' or similar title.

This is the thread. It's very good but long.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/208610-planetary-imaging-with-dslr-video-mode/