Exposure length?

[Arcturian]

I have my Canon 1000D and T-ring and everything necessary to get my first images tonight, how long should i expose for just to get a snapshot image of what I'm looking at, i just attached camera to tube and took a 3 second exposure (with the tube cap on, just to test) and somehow the image was completely saturated, even with the tube having a cap on the end of it, this isn't going to happen when pointing at the stars will it? My question is basically how long to expose for minimum, and how long for more detailed images (upto x-seconds)

What should my iso be on, and just any other settings i should have set to something specific, would be nice to know.

Look forward to hearing back, cheers

[Leveye]

Experiment with that. Very bright objects under a minute. Faint things 3 minutes. Go in increments of 30 seconds.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Its all trial and error really. Depending on your level of light pollution, you can increase/decrease the ISO and exposure times. 

[wxsatuser]

I have my Canon 1000D and T-ring and everything necessary to get my first images tonight, how long should i expose for just to get a snapshot image of what I'm looking at, i just attached camera to tube and took a 3 second exposure (with the tube cap on, just to test) and somehow the image was completely saturated, even with the tube having a cap on the end of it, this isn't going to happen when pointing at the stars will it? My question is basically how long to expose for minimum, and how long for more detailed images (upto x-seconds)

What should my iso be on, and just any other settings i should have set to something specific, would be nice to know.

Look forward to hearing back, cheers

With the tube cap on the exposure should be a dark, all dark with may be some noise and hot pixels.

The sky brightness will determine the exposure.

The best way is to use the in camera histogram.

The exposure will be about right when the the mountain of the histogram is around 25>40% mark.

I normally aim for 25%.

For ISO I use 800 or 1600, some imagers use lower, 800 is a good place to start.

[RichM63]

Hi Arcturian, I'm in almost the same boat but my camera is not scheduled to arrive until September.

Meanwhile, have you spotted the Getting Started with Imaging section, there is a load of info' in the Stickies and the threads also ask the recuring questions.

Makes for great reading, trying to get one's head around things.