Lenses

[Brosnan]

Hi everyone,

looking for advice on buying a cheap 500mm telephoto lens/ mirror lens! I don't know too much about them so any information is appreciated. Would also love to see any examples of astrophotographs taken with these lens. 

Thanks guys!

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I got this with an old PrinzGalaxy 400mm f6.3 lens that I picked up in a charity shop for £10.

It's a stack of 30 frames (the best out of of 110), shot at f8, ISO 800 and 1/400th second. Single frames came out looking more like this:

I wouldn't try to shoot DSOs with it though as I'd get much better results with my shorter lenses. What kinds of targets were you hoping to image?

[Brosnan]

Great shots! 

I'd love to simply get Orion Nebula and andromeda galaxy at the moment. 

any recommendations for a cheap lens that would be able to shoot these? 

Thanks ?

[Kropster]

An old M42 mount fixed focal length lens should get fairly good results... A decent make like Pentax.

Look for one without dents on the front of the barrel!

Avoid cheap zoom lenses as they are not as good.

[Alien 13]

There are some good old lenses out there look at 135 or 200 mm ones as a good starting point.

Alan

[Brosnan]

Thanks for the info ???

[Knight of Clear Skies]

12 hours ago, Brosnan said:

I'd love to simply get Orion Nebula and andromeda galaxy at the moment. 

any recommendations for a cheap lens that would be able to shoot these? 

I put together a quick guide to budget lenses for AP that you might find useful, the example shots include an Orion nebula shot with a 200mm f4 SMC Takumar. My favorite vintage lens at the moment is my 135mm f3.5 Super Takumar, here's a recent image taken with it. Andromeda is a good target for an unmodded DSLR but a modded one will bring out far more detail on emission nebulae.

Hope that's some help, good luck with the imaging.

[Brosnan]

21 minutes ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

I put together a quick guide to budget lenses for AP that you might find useful, the example shots include an Orion nebula shot with a 200mm f4 SMC Takumar. My favorite vintage lens at the moment is my 135mm f3.5 Super Takumar, here's a recent image taken with it. Andromeda is a good target for an unmodded DSLR but a modded one will bring out far more detail on emission nebulae.

Hope that's some help, good luck with the imaging.

Thanks so much! You're a great help! (I'm sure I'll be back to you with more questions haha). 

That budget lens guide is great, was actually reading it last night. 

Thanks again ?