What DSLR do you use and Why ?

[ollypenrice]

12 hours ago, City9Town0 said:

As a novice I got this, modded 450D and Sigma 150-600 and star adventurer.

That's a very creditable result but remember that, unlike the OP, you weren't sampling at 0.7"PP.

Olly

[Ouroboros]

11 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

I use a Canon 80D with camera lenses and it has probably the best noise performance of any of their APS-C cameras (not far off dedicated CMOS), it has an articulated screen but more importantly full wi fi control of everything including focusing. The camera is not modded but has plenty of Ha response for me.

Alan

P.S. regarding the issues with the 650/700/750D series it has been reported that they can cause banding issues due to the hybrid AF pixel design which puts a few extra rows of AF sensors between the main sensor ones, I had a 650D myself and never encountered a problem but I never stretched an image too hard. 

I get quite a lot of banding from my 450D which I struggle to get rid off despite using the banding reduction script in PixInsight. I usually have to lose any stubborn residual banding by suppressing the background in curves, possibly rather more than is ideal. 

[alacant]

11 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

650/700/750D

Hi. OK with the 700 here, but not as good as the 450. The smaller the pixels, the worse for astro? Dunno:

450d: 12mp 5.2µm

700d: 18mp 4.2µm

750d: 24mp 3.7µm

But hey, maybe numbers on a 'phone don't help the OP much. All of them will give an image. Get the one with the biggest pixels?

Cheers and clear skies.

Edited October 20, 2019 by alacant

[Ouroboros]

@Neiman Ollie makes some excellent points regarding imaging with your telescope. That would definitely make me think twice about getting a DSLR. 

..... And anyway I think if I were starting now, and I didn't already have a DSLR, I think I'd be more inclined to research and opt for one of the many different dedicated astro imaging cameras now available. 

The other thing influencing what camera you buy  is what do you want to image? 

 

Edited October 20, 2019 by Ouroboros

[Skyline]

 

I started with a 450D and over 8 years stuck with a 1100D until better CMOS chips came along for dedicated astronomy cameras.

The 1100D basically is the same chip as the 450D apart from the 450D uses DIGI 3 and the 1100D DIGI 4 image processor. The latter with better noise reduction.

The 1100D has a 5.2 µm CMOS sensor, the 450D is the same.

Edit: Easy to mod as well.

Edited October 20, 2019 by Skyline

[Tommohawk]

As a rookie, I started out with a DSLR camera. Canon 550d CMOS with 4.3 micron pixels. Now I've graduated to a dedicated astro camera. ZWO asi1600mm CMOS with 3.8 micron pixels.

I'm just sayin'...... !

 

[gorann]

Just for the record, there is one DSLR that would give you a good pixel ratio: Sony A7S. It is a mirrorless DSLR (so rather a DSL) with a full frame (24x36mm) 12 Mpix sensor with 8.32 µm pixels. Your C 9.25 with 0.65x reducer would give a pixel ratio of 1.16"/pixel. When it came out it was considered a sensation in low-light sensitivity due to its large pixels and low noise. The Mk1 version is now about 5 years old but still quite expensive second hand - I just bought one in mint condition (985 exposures) for 900 Euro on ebay to use on my SCTs. One drawback with it is a relatively low Ha sensitivity due to a filter in front of the chip so right now mine is with JTW Astronomy in Amsterdam to be modded (for full Ha sensitivity). I do have chilled CCD and CMOS cameras so this is kind of an experiment.

Regarding less expensive DSLRs I have very good experience with the Canon 60D - when it came out (maybe 10 years ago) it was noted for a very low noise and Canon even made an astroversion of it (60Da) with full Ha sensitivity. Pixel size is 4.31 µm so you will be oversampling with it in your system but it will certainly work.

[jjosefsen]

Modded 600d before I went mono. It was pretty cheap to buy premodded and I still dig it out from time to time for comets, etc.

Whatever you go for, I will say that modding it will be a massive improvement.

[stash_old]

Canon 100d and SCT 9.25 works well enough - I do EAA with it so dont collect hrs of data. 100d is smaller and lighter than most and is well supported by the usually software BYEOS,APT and Linux Gphoto (Thats what Ekos/Indi uses in the background for Canon). The Sony mentioned above is far superior IMO but just isn't as well supported. The above was from a moddified 100d but short 30 or 60 secs exposure live real time stack in Astrotoaster .

 

Edited October 20, 2019 by stash_old