Budget lens DSO

[Brosnan]

Hi everyone,

i am looking to buy a budget level lens for Christmas to begin astrophotography. I am a beginner observer and am dying to get into imaging. Nothing major to start with, I'd be very happy to get decent images of Orion and andromeda. (My dslr is unmodified) 

If anyone had any examples of pictures they'd taken with these sort of lenses I'd appreciate it.

ive seen some on here from budget lenses and am very impressed. Would love to get a few more samples though. 

Thanks very much ?

[SonnyE]

Why not just jump in with whatever camera lenses you already have?

I got hooked by doing star trails, and found The Great Orion Nebula with a spotting scope.

When doing imaging for my beginning star trails, I bundled up and sat in a chair triggering my (unmodded) DSLR doing 30 second exposures, using my 18-55mm kit lens. Then building the images with a program (free) called StarTrails (how novel is that? ) http://startrails.de/

Later on, I got my first Intervalometer, and the collecting of images became more automatic. I still enjoy a few nights where I set up the camera and let it run all night collecting thousands of pictures to put together into time lapse video's using Windows Movie Maker program. But I do caution you it amasses big piles of shutter operations. And those count eventually as wear on your camera.

One night, when the media was abuzz about the planets alignment, my wife said I should see what I could get. I got a lot more than I bargained for... When I discovered what my camera gathered while I slept, I forgot all about the planets.

So never sell yourself short because there is a lot to be had with the simplest of equipment.

[Brosnan]

Thanks so much! 

Great info! ?

[Tommohawk]

Seems to me that starting out with a new hobby is the best place to be - the learning curve is steep, but so is the progress!

As SonnyE says, you can get some great shots with fairly basic kit.

You mention Andromeda and Orion and they are great starting points, especially Andromeda - its huge! Couple of things to bear in mind though. To get much detail on these you still need a longish lens 200mm would be good, 100mm would be OK for Andromeda. But with that length of lens you will get movement blur with longer exposures if you set up on a normal tripod. I reckon if you used say ISO 3200 with 100mm lens at maybe 10 seconds youd be OK - someone else will probably correct me!!

There are larger DSOs out which you can do with a shorter lens but they're faint and need very long exposures. The milky way is obviously massive so any shorter lens would do - but again better results with longer exposures. Not the best time of the year for the Milky way right now.

Obvious question, as Sonny said, is what lens do you have right now? You might be better off thinking about a driven mount rather than any more lenses.

Also - do you have Stellarium? It does night sky simulation with stars planets galaxies etc - its excellent and very user friendly. You can set up different lens or scopes and cameras so you can see exactly what you would capture. I've found it invaluable. There are other similar offerings but I found Stellarium easiest.

I'm afraid I cant post any images that were done with camera only cos I pretty much always use a driven mount - but I'm sure others will. 

 

Edited December 10, 2016 by Tommohawk

[Tommohawk]

Quick follow on - found this, done with the Fuji bridge camera before I got any lenses for the Canon. Not great but gives an idea of what wide-field can do. Theres way better stuff out there!

Reminds me - using autofocus can be a pain, so bear in mind you will probably need to focus manually. Also you may know that you can getting stacking software which averages out multiple exposures - so you take say 20 images which are maybe a bit noisy and stack them to get a much better result.

File Name    Widefield Orion 010mod.jpg
File Size    1.9MB
Camera Model Name    FinePix HS30EXR
Shooting Date/Time    02/02/2016 21:46:46
Tv (Shutter Speed)    15
Av (Aperture Value)    2.8
Exposure Compensation    0
ISO Speed    200
Image Size    2712x3168
Color Space    sRGB
Comment   

[Brosnan]

30 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

Seems to me that starting out with a new hobby is the best place to be - the learning curve is steep, but so is the progress!

As SonnyE says, you can get some great shots with fairly basic kit.

You mention Andromeda and Orion and they are great starting points, especially Andromeda - its huge! Couple of things to bear in mind though. To get much detail on these you still need a longish lens 200mm would be good, 100mm would be OK for Andromeda. But with that length of lens you will get movement blur with longer exposures if you set up on a normal tripod. I reckon if you used say ISO 3200 with 100mm lens at maybe 10 seconds youd be OK - someone else will probably correct me!!

There are larger DSOs out which you can do with a shorter lens but they're faint and need very long exposures. The milky way is obviously massive so any shorter lens would do - but again better results with longer exposures. Not the best time of the year for the Milky way right now.

Obvious question, as Sonny said, is what lens do you have right now? You might be better off thinking about a driven mount rather than any more lenses.

Also - do you have Stellarium? It does night sky simulation with stars planets galaxies etc - its excellent and very user friendly. You can set up different lens or scopes and cameras so you can see exactly what you would capture. I've found it invaluable. There are other similar offerings but I found Stellarium easiest.

I'm afraid I cant post any images that were done with camera only cos I pretty much always use a driven mount - but I'm sure others will. 

 

Wow thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed answer. I really appreciate it. 

I have recently started using stellarium and love it! I have a basic Nikon D3100 with the lens it came with 18-55mm so far I have only managed the Milky Way with it this is probably my best shot so far.

ive been looking into 200/300mm lenses over the past week mainly brands such as Nikkor and Sigma, seems that they will provide me with some decent results, just making sure before I purchase ?

Thanks again for your help. 

[Tommohawk]

OK, so you're further ahead than I thought! Just bear in mind that with a 200 or 300mm you will need to reduce exposure times to avoid blur.  I dont know Nikkor lenses, Sigma and Tamron seem fine. My Tamron 300mm F2.8 cost me £290. If you get a slower lens like F4 its cheaper but obviously you'll need double the exposure time.

Just a thought - if you set your lens to 55mm and expose for say 36 seconds, that will give about the same amount of blur as the 200mm for 10 seconds. (ish!)

Good luck and have fun!

[SonnyE]

12 minutes ago, Brosnan said:

Wow thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed answer. I really appreciate it. 

I have recently started using stellarium and love it! I have a basic Nikon D3100 with the lens it came with 18-55mm so far I have only managed the Milky Way with it this is probably my best shot so far.

ive been looking into 200/300mm lenses over the past week mainly brands such as Nikkor and Sigma, seems that they will provide me with some decent results, just making sure before I purchase ?

Thanks again for your help. 

Well, look at you now!

You ARE an Astrophotographer already.

(PS: My DSLR is a Nikon D3300. Pretty much the same camera. )

Stellarium is a fantastic program. I even use it to send my mount to the various DSO I photograph. Have fun with it anytime! There's a ton of things it can show us, and help us see what different combinations can do. Very valuable for learning the different milestones in the night sky, especially during the day...

[Brosnan]

11 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

OK, so you're further ahead than I thought! Just bear in mind that with a 200 or 300mm you will need to reduce exposure times to avoid blur.  I dont know Nikkor lenses, Sigma and Tamron seem fine. My Tamron 300mm F2.8 cost me £290. If you get a slower lens like F4 its cheaper but obviously you'll need double the exposure time.

Just a thought - if you set your lens to 55mm and expose for say 36 seconds, that will give about the same amount of blur as the 200mm for 10 seconds. (ish!)

Good luck and have fun!

Thanks for the tips! 

Tamron- don't think i looked at those, I'll have a look now! Thanks again ?

[Brosnan]

45 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

OK, so you're further ahead than I thought! Just bear in mind that with a 200 or 300mm you will need to reduce exposure times to avoid blur.  I dont know Nikkor lenses, Sigma and Tamron seem fine. My Tamron 300mm F2.8 cost me £290. If you get a slower lens like F4 its cheaper but obviously you'll need double the exposure time.

Just a thought - if you set your lens to 55mm and expose for say 36 seconds, that will give about the same amount of blur as the 200mm for 10 seconds. (ish!)

Good luck and have fun!

One more question haha, I'm just looking at the Tamron 70-300mm F4/5 it seems great and saw a lot of amazing pics taken with it on astrobin (I'm sure those people had amazing set ups but if I could get a fraction of that quality I'd be happy). 

My question is have you had an trouble focusing your tamron with your Nikon? As I was looking at a lens early (can't recall the brand) but it turned out many people couldn't focus it at infinity with their nikons! 

Thanks ?

[SonnyE]

I have two Tamron lenses myself. I did have trouble with my 150-600 mm for the longest time. It seems that running my Nikon on basic, automatic settings, and learning to move quickly from focusing to shutter release was the ticket. Daylight shooting of the Grand-kid's soccer mostly. 10's of thousands of shots. Many out of focus trying to do what everybody else said. Once I came back to plain basic automatic functions, and quickly getting the shot at focus, I was happy. That lens has a very close focusing point. Inches one way are another can be out of focus in automatic.

For night shooting of the skies, manual settings, for any lens I'm using.

My other Tamron lens is a macro lens, 180 mm. It is strictly a manual operation for my camera. My thinking was that for Macro, manual focusing was the rule, and the 180 mm gave me distance from my subjects so as to not disturb them into fleeing. Even at that, I had one tiny jumping spider hopping mad at me, or the reflection in the lens. Quite funny!

But, I do like my Tamron's just fine.

[Brosnan]

45 minutes ago, SonnyE said:

I have two Tamron lenses myself. I did have trouble with my 150-600 mm for the longest time. It seems that running my Nikon on basic, automatic settings, and learning to move quickly from focusing to shutter release was the ticket. Daylight shooting of the Grand-kid's soccer mostly. 10's of thousands of shots. Many out of focus trying to do what everybody else said. Once I came back to plain basic automatic functions, and quickly getting the shot at focus, I was happy. That lens has a very close focusing point. Inches one way are another can be out of focus in automatic.

For night shooting of the skies, manual settings, for any lens I'm using.

My other Tamron lens is a macro lens, 180 mm. It is strictly a manual operation for my camera. My thinking was that for Macro, manual focusing was the rule, and the 180 mm gave me distance from my subjects so as to not disturb them into fleeing. Even at that, I had one tiny jumping spider hopping mad at me, or the reflection in the lens. Quite funny!

But, I do like my Tamron's just fine.

Ah good to hear! I suppose it will just take practice (whatever lens I end up getting).

great to hear that Tamrons work well. ?

Thanks. 

[Tommohawk]

1 hour ago, Brosnan said:

One more question haha, I'm just looking at the Tamron 70-300mm F4/5 it seems great and saw a lot of amazing pics taken with it on astrobin (I'm sure those people had amazing set ups but if I could get a fraction of that quality I'd be happy). 

My question is have you had an trouble focusing your tamron with your Nikon? As I was looking at a lens early (can't recall the brand) but it turned out many people couldn't focus it at infinity with their nikons! 

Thanks ?

Hmmm. I did have a Nikon 3200 but never used it with the Tamron so not sure about that.

Be aware that early Tamrons - like mine - had an "adaptall" mount so you could change the adapter for different cameras. This had the obvious advantage that if you were to swap to say a Canon, you could keep the lens and change the adapter. The adapters could be a bit flakey and I'm guessing thats where the focusing issue arises. With newer Tamrons this shouldnt be a problem ... BUT obviously if you switch to Canon you'll need a new lens. 

A zoom type lens like the one you mention would be handy, because if you dont have a "GoTo" type mount, you may struggle to find Andromeda or whatever at 300mm. However, as I mentioned before, at 300mm you will be f5.6 and will need 4x longer exposures than F2.8. 

If the sky was clear I'd nip out and try the Tamron 300mm and see what it delivers at F5.6  ... but I think we might be waiting a while!!

Looks like the 70-300mm comes at a good price -but you might be better with a shorter faster lens if youre going to use a static tripod mount. Bear in mind you can crop a nice clear image to about 25% and still display at pretty much full resolution depending on your screen settings of course.

 

[Tommohawk]

Well what do you know... clear sky, albeit rather moonlit!

So I nipped out and took a few quick shots of Orion which was obliging enough and lined up first go - not bad done by eye at 300mm!

I took a number of frames at different ISOs and times and Fs to give you an idea of what to expect - but theyre in RAW format so I need to convert - will post tomorrow.

 

[happy-kat]

400/300 = 1.3 seconds roughly before star trails

[Brosnan]

24 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

Well what do you know... clear sky, albeit rather moonlit!

So I nipped out and took a few quick shots of Orion which was obliging enough and lined up first go - not bad done by eye at 300mm!

I took a number of frames at different ISOs and times and Fs to give you an idea of what to expect - but theyre in RAW format so I need to convert - will post tomorrow.

 

Wow thank you so much! I really appreciate that! You've been such a great help. ??

[Tommohawk]

OK heres the images I did last night. Couple of things - focus was pretty good but probably could have been better. Exposure times are approximate bevause the camera battery was on the way out and I did it in a rush on "bulb" setting. Also the tripod was flung up in haste and fully extended, so a bit wobbly. Also these images are all converted from RAW format to JEPG and compressed.

In other words under ideal conditions you would do better! BTW shoot  with RAW(Nikon = NEFF) files - they process better,

BTW HappyKat's got there first with the formula! Here's the evidence:

1. 10 second exposure. Way too much trails

2. 5 second exposure - still big trail

3. 3 seconds - still noticeable trail

4. 2 second exp -getting there

5. 1 second at ISO 3200, F5.6

6. 1 second ISO 3200, F2.8

Hopefully this gives you a better idea of what to expect. You can see that there are still trails on the 1 second exposure - -ideally you would be 0.5 seconds or maybe less. If you up the ISO to 6400 it will get pretty noisy.

I really dont want to discourage you  but I'm concerned that if you splash out on a 300mm F5.6 you will find it too slow if using a static tripod. You may want to think about getting a driven mount before splashing out on a more lenses. A second hand EQ3 pro would cost about £200.

Hope this helps!! BTW the above images are very compresses so at the bottom Ive put a crop from the 1 second ISO 3200 F5.6 at better resolution.

Good luck!

 

 

[Brosnan]

8 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

OK heres the images I did last night. Couple of things - focus was pretty good but probably could have been better. Exposure times are approximate bevause the camera battery was on the way out and I did it in a rush on "bulb" setting. Also the tripod was flung up in haste and fully extended, so a bit wobbly. Also these images are all converted from RAW format to JEPG and compressed.

In other words under ideal conditions you would do better! BTW shoot  with RAW(Nikon = NEFF) files - they process better,

BTW HappyKat's got there first with the formula! Here's the evidence:

1. 10 second exposure. Way too much trails

2. 5 second exposure - still big trail

3. 3 seconds - still noticeable trail

4. 2 second exp -getting there

5. 1 second at ISO 3200, F5.6

6. 1 second ISO 3200, F2.8

Hopefully this gives you a better idea of what to expect. You can see that there are still trails on the 1 second exposure - -ideally you would be 0.5 seconds or maybe less. If you up the ISO to 6400 it will get pretty noisy.

I really dont want to discourage you  but I'm concerned that if you splash out on a 300mm F5.6 you will find it too slow if using a static tripod. You may want to think about getting a driven mount before splashing out on a more lenses. A second hand EQ3 pro would cost about £200.

Hope this helps!! BTW the above images are very compresses so at the bottom Ive put a crop from the 1 second ISO 3200 F5.6 at better resolution.

Good luck!

 

 

Wow these are great! Very motivating.  Thanks for all the effort you went to! I will be sure to take all your tips on board! I'll spend this week researching options for a driven mount! ?

all the best! ?

[Stub Mandrel]

If budget includes second hand manual lenses manual lenses, try these:

Zeiss Sonnar 135mmm f3.5 (taken with a (freshly) modded DSLR so the flame and horsehead wouldn't show as well on an unmodded camera, but you wouldn't have to use violet halo removal that I had to use - modding causes the UV to make blue rings around bright stars unless you use a UV/skylight filter):

Andromeda with PrinzGalaxy 400 (available cheap off the bay for £30 up) will need an T-mount adaptor. This is taken with a Canon 10D which is only a 10-bit camera.

 

[xtreemchaos]

hi mate I took this with a unmodded 1200d and a £20 super takumar 35/135 lens, 40x45 sec exp. goodluck, charl.

[Tommohawk]

Hey Charl and Neil - I'm sure the OP will find those very useful.

I'm thinking they were done with tracking equatorial mounts?

[xtreemchaos]

27 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

Hey Charl and Neil - I'm sure the OP will find those very useful.

mine was hand held mate , no not to demo tracking to show possabiltys with a vintage 54 year old lens and how you can still get a bit of HA with a unmodded cam, a heq5 was used.  charl.

[Stub Mandrel]

2 hours ago, Tommohawk said:

Hey Charl and Neil - I'm sure the OP will find those very useful.

I'm thinking they were done with tracking equatorial mounts?

Yes was tracked, but the point is the capabilities of cheap glass!

[Tommohawk]

Yes good point!

I didn't want the OP to get carried away with the idea of getting a long lens and expecting miracles. But once you have equatorial mount and tracking you can get good results with a relatively inexpensive lens.

[Brosnan]

Thanks for the help everyone! ??