Astrophotography help

[Slinkystring]

Hi everyone

With thanks to father in law i have borrowed 2 cameras i will list equipment below i was hoping you guys and girls could advise me on best lenses to use i have had telescopes years ago but this is a hole new ball game thanks to you and hello

Nikon p600  60x zoom (bridge camera)

Nikon d40 (below list of equipment for d40)

Af s  nikkor 70-300mm (autofocus)

Af nikkor70-300mm

52mm t/52mm w

52mm uv 

Uv+cpl+fld filter kits

Sturdy tripod

Thanks

[mikey2000]

Hi there. 

I guess it depends on the sort of pics you want to take.  I don't see a wide angle lens for the DSLR so I suppose broad milky way photos won't be on the list. (Unless the P600 can go wide)

For deep space stuff, a 70-300 might work well.     However, I'm sure you will soon be needing to upgrade the sturdy tripod to a proper tracking mount of some description. 

 

I started off with a 70-200 lens on a tripod but could only get exposures of a few seconds before getting star trails....

 

Beware - this is a slippery and expensive slope!  (But great fun!)

 

 

[Slinkystring]

Hi there thanks fot replying yes i think i should stick with moon shots with  camera and i forgot to add 52mm wide lens to list 

Thanks mikey2000

[mikey2000]

No problem.  For moon shots, you might be interested in looking into 'stacking' and 'Drizzling'   Stakcking this is where you take a whole load of photos (literally hundreds) then use software to blend them together.  With enough pics, you can cancel out the shimmering effects of atmospheric turbulence and average out the camera ISO noise for a cleaner pic.  'Drizzling' is part of the same routine where the computer can enhance the resolution. This might be of interest to you as 300mm isn't long enough for real closeups.

 

There are many ways of achieving this.  Plenty of tutorials both on this site and 'out there' 

[happy-kat]

The d40 with the widest fastest lens assume your 52mm. 

M mode, d40 is not full frame sensor so you can take exposures 7 seconds long before star trails. Point at the milky way. Make sure tripod nice and steady, take practice shots to get focus right. Probably use around iso 800. You are looking for the histogram peak to be clear of the left hand side but not as far as the middle. Once focus is good make sure to either use a remote release or the self timer. Take lots of photos using raw ideally. You can then combine them using 'deep space stacker'. You can do basic processing with that software as well. Take lots of images say at least 10+.

As you learn more you can do calibration files.

I think the biggest initial hurdle is can dss read the raw files from your d40.

If there is any in camera noise options turn them off. When you take a 7 second image it should just be 7 seconds if it is longer there is some noise removal stuff going on.