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Hi I'm trying to get into astrophotography


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Hi people, in trying to get into astrophotography on a budget.

At the moment I'm just happy being able to start taking pictures. I have a canon EF Eos D2000

Probably not the best for astrophotography but I hope it's can be a start. I'm trying to find a cheap lense. Soon as I put astrophotography lense into Google it's coming up with some astronomical 😜 prices I just can't afford. Have anyone got any suggestions at an affordable price. 

I understand that I'm not going to get a astrophotography lense for penny's but surely their is other lenses I can use even if it's average quality.

Regards James 

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I think you are about to find that the words 'budget' and 'astrophotography' do not belong in the same sentence.

I am not sure what you mean by 'astrophotography lens'.  If you get a regular photographic lens (fixed or zoom) with a moderate focal length (e.g. 70mm or more) and attach it to your camera, you can make a start.  Such lenses are not 'cheap' especially if you are buying new, but there are plenty of used ones on ebay.

Thus equipped, you can try imaging star trails, or invest in a star-tracking mount and try making some wide-field astro images.

A later step is to use an astro telescope as the lens. Which generally requires the use of an expensive mount.

I expect someone with more experience in the field will be along soon to comment.

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If you have a camera then could start with the lens that came with it. Startrails have already been mentioned as one avenue another is plenty short exposure shots, as short as necessary to not show star trails and stack them. Nice images can be created using a wide field lens such as the kit lens often supplied with cameras. Need a stead tripod and a trigger for the shutter either the onboard timer or an external trigger. If have an android phone then there are various camera shutter apps using an OTG cable  like to use DSLR Controller.

Software lots available to start with, GIMP, startrails, starstax, DSS, SIRIL and for video to see what pushing astro using a static tripod might look like have a look at Forest Tanaka

 

EDIT What telescope do you have?

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Yes it is very easy to slip over the event horizon.  To start on the journey, you may wish to find stuff by Trevor Jones whose website is Astrobackyard.com.  He lays out the options and seems to provide helpful information about starting out and what to expect with varying setups and progression through the obsession. You could look at https://www.photographingspace.com/beginner-dslr-astrophotography/ for an more ideas about settings and equipment and another view on using a dslr camera.  A Canon is a good choice for astrophotography.  Finally the only really helpful advice I can give you is to get a Batinhov mask.

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James If I were Look for a wide lens can’t go wrong with Samyang 14mm for you canon you should get around 15s subs untracked with that take as many shots as you can get and stack them. You will be going after wide field Milky Way shots. Next step up will be a star tracker you can pick up both these items for about 400 quid used I reckon. 

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As Geoff has mentioned, budget and astrophotography tend not to be associated together, however it need not cost the Earth to get started. 

I'm not really experienced enough with a camera / lens set up as I bolt my Canon camera onto a 8" reflecting telescope, but the basics still apply.  Two factors are similar though, the longer the focal length the darker the image will get, so you need more aperture.  Now camera lenses have the ability of increasing aperture compared to a scope, so as you zoom in you can stop down (stop up ??) to let more light in.  It also depends on what you are expecting.  Even a stock 50mm lens under a dark sky will give some stunning wide field views of the constellations and milky way, and won't need any fancy guided or driven mount.  Using a zoom lens to narrow the field of view and increase magnification, and increasing the aperture could then mean that the Earths rotation becomes an issue and stars become trailed.  A decent driven mount then becomes more important than the camera that sits on it.  Years ago it was normal to buy a telescope mount and adapt it to take a camera, but these days dedicated tracking mounts for cameras now exist, which makes the task a lot easier.

I would suggest giving FLO or RVO a call and discuss your requirements and budget and see what they have to offer.  I'm also sure other members who used lenses rather than telescopes to gather photons will chime in here and give you some ideas of which mount is worth investigating and even post up some of their images so you can get an idea of what to expect

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5 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

If you have a camera then could start with the lens that came with it. Startrails have already been mentioned as one avenue another is plenty short exposure shots, as short as necessary to not show star trails and stack them. Nice images can be created using a wide field lens such as the kit lens often supplied with cameras. Need a stead tripod and a trigger for the shutter either the onboard timer or an external trigger. If have an android phone then there are various camera shutter apps using an OTG cable  like to use DSLR Controller.

Software lots available to start with, GIMP, startrails, starstax, DSS, SIRIL and for video to see what pushing astro using a static tripod might look like have a look at Forest Tanaka

 

EDIT What telescope do you have?

skywatcher 130pds but i need to invest in a decent mount. thank you for your advice.

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The general consensus for best decent priced one is a Samyang 135mm, £450 odd new, or if you're very lucky to find one you can find them around £200-£300 used. The F2 or T2.2 one (they're both the same lens). I've achieved decent results with an Asahi Takumar even though they're around 40 to 50 years old, they're very cheap unless you look for the 135mm 6 element type which is highly sought after, with good post processing you can get decent results, have a look at this thread I started:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/394959-pentax-asahi-takumar-smc-lens-infinity-focus-with-canon-600d-dslr/page/2/

Edited by Elp
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I have not used one, but I am guessing your EQ2 with a RA motor drive would be usable as a star tracker. You can use this to mount you camera as a starting point. Next stop I would suggest would be fleabay. There are expensive ED lenses which are ideal for AP, but to start with a standard widefield lens or two would get you started without having to empty your bank account. I just got a 100mm F2.8 prime lens for £30. This plus an intervalometer for the camera will get you started as a very simple set up. Yes, it will not give perfect images but you will be surprised what you can achieve. It will also allow you to try stacking and image processing before entering the financial black hole of AP. Trust me, it is addictive and expensive😁

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Just my $0.02 worth.. get the best mount you can afford. Then use a camera you already own and a telescope you own. This hobby is enjoyable from the very first photo. People want to take a masterpiece with their very first shot. (me too) But years of trial and error have slowly resulted in getting better equipment and understanding how to get the most out of each component.

The main thing is get started! If possible start with things you already own. Figure out what would make the greatest improvement and that is where the next expense should be. If you have a camera and a tripod, try them! See what you can get with what you own. No need to go invest a gazillion in cash for the very first image (unless you are government funded!).

There will always be one more thing that would be great to have. But quoting that great philosopher Cheryl Crow: "Its not having what you want, its wanting what you've got". Perhaps Cheryl has tried astro photography.. hmm..

 

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12 hours ago, amateur-astro said:

 Nexstar 4SE

Hi

I'd go with a decent lens. Start here maybe. The 55mm, 135mm and 200mm versions are good too. If you're good at auctions, you could come away with one of each for around €100. Your mount -has it a ra motor?- should be able to do 30s frames with them:

HTH

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auriga.thumb.jpg.0302bfea1e7befeb0f167b1114844425.jpg

 

Edited by alacant
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Many of us started with a camera and a lens and didn't get into telescopes till later. This approach has a lot to recommend it:

  1. You can get old prime lenses relatively inexpensively (relative to telescopes)
  2. It lets you start at shorter focal lengths, which forgive a multitude of sins
  3. Exposure, calibration frames, and processing are exactly the same, which gives you a big head start

Strictly speaking it is not aperture per se but focal ratio which will yield shorter exposure times and thus make less demand on tracking. And shorter lenses will give you a better focal ratio for the buck than longer (or telescopes, for that matter). A 1970s-vintage 50mm f/2 will let you image the Milky Way, bits of the Orion Molecular Cloud, the North America Nebula, and more.

The "rule of 500" is a guideline for star trailing WRT focal length, although many think it should be more like 300 -- let's use that. 300 divided by the focal length gives you the max exposure time in seconds. So for a 50mm lens, 6 seconds. For a 300mm lens, one second. For a 14mm lens, maybe as much as 20 seconds.

If you add a basic sidereal tracker, you'll extend that time.

Once you have the software and techniques to calibrate and stack images, the individual exposure times cease to matter as much. It's certainly not linear, but 30 1-second exposures are going to be somewhere in the ballpark as one 30-second exposure. So it's total integration time that matters.

Highly recommend Charles Bracken's The Deep-Sky Imaging Primer or Steve Richards' Making Every Photon Count. That kind of knowledge base will serve you very well in evaluating what's feasible with your limited budget.

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To help use your existing eq2 mount with ra drive to help setup would be to fashion something to help you polar align your eq2 to then use the mount with your camera and a lens for imaging. The staradventurer tracks just on the ra axis to.

The 4SE mentioned the mount moves in tiny left right up down movements so will follow an object but doesn't track the earth's rotation so images begin to smear which limits exposure length. The eq2 tracks equatorially.

Edited by happy-kat
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Dear friend it is perfectly possible to use 

Your DSLR - Eos 2000D

Not so expensive lens - samyang 135 f2

EQ3 Mount - motorised

 

And end up as NASA APOD winner! How do i know? Look at this APOD:

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220405.html

and now check the equipment:

https://www.astrobin.com/id3tq9/

 

Indeed it is 22H of collection, and probably lot more of editing, but it is possible. 

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