Simple deepsky kit.

[WilliamAstro]

So I was thinking if a canon 550d and a star adventurer is good enough for deepsky imaging and does require filters right? I dont want to spend to much and have it over complicated. is the L-optolong pro good for that?

[barbulo]

I think the 550D with a decent lens (able to give a quite flat field) or a short scope on a Star Adventurer is a good setup. 
The use of filters depends on what you want to filter out or highlight in your images. L-enhance or L-extreme pro seem to perform very well for LP. 

[WilliamAstro]

Just now, barbulo said:

I think the 550D with a decent lens (able to give a quite flat field) or a short scope on a Star Adventurer is a good setup. 
The use of filters depends on what you want to filter out or highlight in your images. L-enhance or L-extreme pro seem to perform very well for LP. 

is 75-300mm good for deepsky?

[alacant]

3 hours ago, WilliamAstro said:

75-300mm

Hi

I believe it fair to say that the 75-300 zoom is not perhaps the best lens Canon have ever made;) You may just be ok at 135mm or less but you're gonna need f8 at the fastest. Wide open it's, well... You get the idea.

An old eBay Zeiss or Takumar 135mm or 200mm along with an eos adapter will give you a much better chance of getting something decent without breaking the budget.

But hey, try it.

Maybe come back to the filter question when you've tried without.

Star Adventurer? Great idea. Just use a decent tripod.

Cheers and HTH

Edited March 6, 2022 by alacant

[Clarkey]

Good advice above. Some of the old prime lenses are dirt cheap on flea bay.

I image from bortle 5/6 and as a rule I don't use any light pollution filter. I would rather sort out the gradients but get as much signal as possible. Given a lot of the LP is from LED's without going the extreme narrowband type filters, there use is limited in my opinion. (If you still have old sodium or mercury vapour lights then a LP filter makes more sense).

[Swillis]

I have that lens (and use it for AP) and alacant is right!  However if you already own the lens then it may fit your requirements (££) as you get started, but you will soon want to upgrade to something/anything more suitable.

[WilliamAstro]

On 06/03/2022 at 18:34, alacant said:

Hi

I believe it fair to say that the 75-300 zoom is not perhaps the best lens Canon have ever made;) You may just be ok at 135mm or less but you're gonna need f8 at the fastest. Wide open it's, well... You get the idea.

An old eBay Zeiss or Takumar 135mm or 200mm along with an eos adapter will give you a much better chance of getting something decent without breaking the budget.

But hey, try it.

Maybe come back to the filter question when you've tried without.

Star Adventurer? Great idea. Just use a decent tripod.

Cheers and HTH

what kind of star adventurer is good enough, mini, regular or pro if its a on a budget?

[Swillis]

What ever the budget you should spend as much as possible on the mount. Probably you are going to need the pro. The pro is the same as the standard version, but with the L-bracket and counter weight bar, which you are going to want for imaging DSOs to enable you to balance properly. 

I have the SA 2i pro and use a DSLR with 75-300mm lens you mentioned. And the mount performs well, the issues are with the lens. 

As has been mentioned previously you will also want a sturdy tripod. I have the SW one, which does the job asked of it. 

[900SL]

L Pro filter will likely require longer exposures. Combined with a long lens it won't work so well. Lots of reject subs, star trails etc. Is the Canon Ha modded? 

The SA isn't really designed for both long exposures and a long lens. 50 arc second PE, backlash, gear slop, it all adds up.

Edited March 9, 2022 by 900SL

[Elp]

You don't need filters to start off with. Through experience you'll learn what your issues are (shooting environment, targets) then can make an informed decision going forward. The SA is okay, I got frustrated trying to find targets with it especially if you're in a light polluted area, once I got an azgti (another option to consider) the SA was sold on. Getting the azgti to work in EQ mode (as it's designed to be an altaz mount) is more involving but much better overall as it also has goto. For more info see the owners thread on what people are doing with it.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Elp

[ONIKKINEN]

Whether the L-pro is worth it depends on a few things IMO.

Level of light pollution and type of target you have in mind. Also, whether you want to have a real colour result in the end, or make it easier for yourself to get one. Using a light pollution filter will make it very difficult (impossible for most) to get a real colour result in the end because you have blocked a part of the visible spectrum during capture.

If your sky conditions are very bad, like lets say bortle 8 inner city skies then yes you may want to use one, but in conditions better than this maybe not and even in these conditions also maybe not. Broadband targets, like galaxies benefit very little or not at all from a filter like the L-pro, because light pollution and galaxy light shares the same spectrum so by blocking light pollution you also block starlight coming from the galaxy. For emission nebulae it would work just fine, because emission nebulae have 2 major emission lines that produce most of the signal imagers are interested in: Oxygen 3 and Hydrogen alpha. Neither are effected by the L-pro and here there are only positives when using one. But for emission nebulae there exist much better filters than the L-pro, like the L-enhance and the L-extreme. So personally i would not be using the L-pro in pretty much any situation. When imaging galaxies, better without, when imaging emission nebulae, better with another filter.

Perhaps its best to start without the filter as its not really necessary or wanted for some cases.

For the 550D you will probably want to install the 3rd party firmware package called "Magic lantern" https://magiclantern.fm . It expands the Canon limitations for many parts and unlocks features such as an intervalometer, improved focus detection (works actually decently for astro too), more freedom on shutter and ISO settings, more video shooting modes (if you want to do planetary/Lunar). Do keep in mind though that its still 3rd party and something might go wrong. I personally had a few hard crashes where i needed to reset the software. These happened when playing around video capture FPS which the firmware warns you about so not unexpected.

[AstroMuni]

On 06/03/2022 at 14:54, WilliamAstro said:

So I was thinking if a canon 550d and a star adventurer is good enough for deepsky imaging and does require filters right? I dont want to spend to much and have it over complicated. is the L-optolong pro good for that?

Over and above all this hardware you will need a decent laptop/RPi and software to manage and process the images. Half the challenge is post capture

[WilliamAstro]

On 06/03/2022 at 18:34, alacant said:

Hi

I believe it fair to say that the 75-300 zoom is not perhaps the best lens Canon have ever made;) You may just be ok at 135mm or less but you're gonna need f8 at the fastest. Wide open it's, well... You get the idea.

An old eBay Zeiss or Takumar 135mm or 200mm along with an eos adapter will give you a much better chance of getting something decent without breaking the budget.

But hey, try it.

Maybe come back to the filter question when you've tried without.

Star Adventurer? Great idea. Just use a decent tripod.

Cheers and HTH

Well I found this image of what AstroBackyard took with the same lens I have. It is the Witchhead Nebula. (if im correct)

Edited March 11, 2022 by WilliamAstro

[WilliamAstro]

On 09/03/2022 at 09:25, AstroMuni said:

Over and above all this hardware you will need a decent laptop/RPi and software to manage and process the images. Half the challenge is post capture

I already have a laptop to go for that

[WilliamAstro]

On 08/03/2022 at 22:42, ONIKKINEN said:

Whether the L-pro is worth it depends on a few things IMO.

Level of light pollution and type of target you have in mind. Also, whether you want to have a real colour result in the end, or make it easier for yourself to get one. Using a light pollution filter will make it very difficult (impossible for most) to get a real colour result in the end because you have blocked a part of the visible spectrum during capture.

If your sky conditions are very bad, like lets say bortle 8 inner city skies then yes you may want to use one, but in conditions better than this maybe not and even in these conditions also maybe not. Broadband targets, like galaxies benefit very little or not at all from a filter like the L-pro, because light pollution and galaxy light shares the same spectrum so by blocking light pollution you also block starlight coming from the galaxy. For emission nebulae it would work just fine, because emission nebulae have 2 major emission lines that produce most of the signal imagers are interested in: Oxygen 3 and Hydrogen alpha. Neither are effected by the L-pro and here there are only positives when using one. But for emission nebulae there exist much better filters than the L-pro, like the L-enhance and the L-extreme. So personally i would not be using the L-pro in pretty much any situation. When imaging galaxies, better without, when imaging emission nebulae, better with another filter.

Perhaps its best to start without the filter as its not really necessary or wanted for some cases.

For the 550D you will probably want to install the 3rd party firmware package called "Magic lantern" https://magiclantern.fm . It expands the Canon limitations for many parts and unlocks features such as an intervalometer, improved focus detection (works actually decently for astro too), more freedom on shutter and ISO settings, more video shooting modes (if you want to do planetary/Lunar). Do keep in mind though that its still 3rd party and something might go wrong. I personally had a few hard crashes where i needed to reset the software. These happened when playing around video capture FPS which the firmware warns you about so not unexpected.

Where is live is in Bortle 5. What are your thoughts about the requirements for filters?

[Clarkey]

I live in B5 or 6 and I don't use any filters except for narrowband. I would rather get all the photons and sort out gradients in processing. If you have specific issues with sodium or mercury vapour lights there may be some benefit, but if the bulk of the lighting is LED I'm not sure of the value.

[alacant]

20 hours ago, WilliamAstro said:

AstroBackyard

Mmm...

Hi

I hope it turns out similarly for you, but perhaps more realistically:

Cheers

 

 

 

[ollypenrice]

On 11/03/2022 at 20:25, WilliamAstro said:

Well I found this image of what AstroBackyard took with the same lens I have. It is the Witchhead Nebula. (if im correct)

That's a good Witch Head but can you provide a link to the original? All the details would be nice to know.

Olly

 

[WilliamAstro]

11 hours ago, alacant said:

Mmm...

Hi

I hope it turns out similarly for you, but perhaps more realistically:

Cheers

 

 

 

what was that taken from? i am in bortle 5 to be exact

[WilliamAstro]

7 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

That's a good Witch Head but can you provide a link to the original? All the details would be nice to know.

Olly

 

https://astrobackyard.com/canon-ef-75-300-astrophotography/

[Ratlet]

One thing I've found informative is to go on astrobin and search for a lens.  You'll be able to see what other people have achieved with the kit.  One man's example doesn't make a good sample, check out astrobin and get some more data points on the range of quality the lens will produce.  Just don't be too precise (you'll get more hits for "canon 75-300" than "canon EF 75-300").  Personally, from astrobin examples, I think it's acceptable.  To my eyes.

One man's unacceptable is another man's masterpiece.  I'm just planning stuff out, but browsing astrobin is helping me dial in my expectations and giving me something to aim for.  Eg, I can now at least recognise chromatic aberration but find is aesthetically pleasing sometimes and I like my nebula garish pink.

 

 

[WilliamAstro]

Since everyone claims that the EF 75-300mm lens is not good for astrophotography, I could buy a apochromatic refractor. What that will be is Skywatcher's Evostar 72ED. I could buy a guiding scope and camera in the future

[900SL]

Its a funny old hobby is this one

Great expectations, big disappointments.  And dosh. Lots of dosh.

If you are starting off with a Star Adventurer (or Sky guider pro), without guiding, then using a 72mm scope will be frustrating IMO.  You will need a field flattener with this scope to get a flat image on your sensor, and the tracking error in the scope, plus any wobble in your set up, will likely result in star trails and lots of poor frames. The rule is longer scope, longer exposure = better mount.

Maybe look at a Redcat 51, this is a petzval design so you can use it with a camera with no additional glass. Or a shorter prime camera lens, one that is known to have good astro-photography performance.

Bortle 5 will mean lots of short exposures to avoid swamping the sensor with the light pollution. A dual narrowband filter can help in those conditions, but requires much longer exposures because you are only catching a fraction of the light, so I wouldn't start with that. KISS, get to learn how to stack and process using free software, keep it short focal length to start learning the ropes, move up to longer focal lengths when you get a guiding set up.

 

The Witch head example you posted was by Trevor Jones. He mentions the Samyang 135mm at the end, and basically says it blows the Canon Zoom into the weeds. Which is true.

   

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 13, 2022 by 900SL

[alacant]

1 hour ago, WilliamAstro said:

EF 75-300mm lens is not good for astrophotography

What is unacceptable for some of us, may well be ok for others. We may have a bad batch of the lens for example. Best to try it first, no?

Cheers

[WilliamAstro]

29 minutes ago, alacant said:

What is unacceptable for some of us, may well be ok for others. We may have a bad batch of the lens for example. Best to try it first, no?

Cheers

i could try it out for the sake of it. and i could buy a scope anyways in case the results will be bad in the beginning