SBIG STL-11000 & Old Camera Lens

[Martin Farmer]

Hello Group,

I have an SBIG STL11000M with SBIG 8 position filter wheel that I currently have on the back of a telescope. This camera is getting on a bit (but still works), what I’m currently thinking is to take this off the scope and use old 35mm camera lenses on the camera directly. Looking around the internet there is not much information on what adaptors or lenses people have used. 

Due to its age I think that I will have to resort to scouring around the second hand market for adaptors - anyone got any pointers on you use of this camera and 35mm lenses.

 

Thanks for looking

Martin

[whipdry]

Hi Martin, 

No experience with this combo but you  may get more help with a little more info;

What's the total backfocus of the camera & filterwheel combined? 

Also percent thread on the filterwheel?

 

Peter 

[Martin Farmer]

Hello Peter,

Thanks for your reply to my post, I didn’t go deep on info as I suppose the question is are there any  amateurs on here with the same combination who are using old 35mm lenses. 
 

Further research by myself has come up with I cannot use the add on filter wheel FW8 and will have to revert back to the internal filter wheel as backfocus is extremely limited. 
 

regards

Martin

[whipdry]

Hi Martin, 

Have you considered medium format lenses, they usually have more backfocus... maybe a 6x7 Pentax lens would make it possible to still utilise the FW8?

 

Peter 

[davew]

Is this the one with the built in filter wheel ? If so I remember SBIG used to sell a Nikon adapter for it.

Also, as far as I remember, the pixels are 9 microns in size and if you go very wide angle you will probably get square stars.

As this was a USA product you may have some luck with a wanted advert somewhere over there. There may be a manual to download which would tell you.

I used to dream about cameras like this ! 

Dave.

[sloz1664]

Hi Martin,

Firstly, what is the thread on the SBIG filter wheel? Secondly, are you looking at old screw-in type 35mm lens, if so, they are M42 threads and the back focus is usually 55mm. 

Steve

[michael8554]

Canon EF and EF-S backfocus is 44mm.

Canon FD is 42mm

Old Pentax / Practika screw is 45.46mm

Nikon 46.5

Steve has probably included a T2 Adapter in his figure.

Michael

[Martin Farmer]

All,

Thanks for info and replying. 
 

The camera originally had a built in filter wheel that allowed five internal filters. At the time of purchase there was an offer that you could buy the FW8 filter wheel at a good discounted price. 
I got the FW8 filter wheel so I could add a full set of narrowband filters as well as LRGB. 
There is no way with the FW8 on that any lens will reach focus it’s too far away from the CCD. 
Looking at the pictures of the Nikon lens adaptor it seems to be a very low profile device and it goes straight onto the front of the internal filter wheel housing. 
I can’t remember if it screws into the small block on the front or you remove this and fit it directly on. 
When I used the camera with a focal reducer I went down the route of having an adapter made by Precise Parts in the States. 
I have looked through online buy and sell web sites but they don’t seem to have any of the Nikon adaptors listed (probably they were popular about five years ago). I see Gerd Neumann lists an adaptor to take Canon lenses - I will email to find out more. 
 

Thanks for the suggestion of a medium format lens - I had not considered them. 
 

thanks to Michael, Peter, Dave & Steve for responding to my post. 
 

Regards,

Martin