Full spectrum camera or Baadar astro mod ? Which to buy ?

[neilt3]

Hello all .

I'm a keen photographer and I am looking at upgrading my camera for astrophotography, both using camera lenses and with the camera attached to a telescope .

Amongst my normal cameras I also have an infrared camera ( Sony E mount ) , a couple of full spectrum cameras ( Sony E mount ) an old Canon EOS 450d converted for astrophotography with ( I believe ) the Baadar astro mod filter .

Apart from the age of the 450d , my main issue with the lack of a moveable LCD for composition.

There's times where I want the camera connected in line with the telescope rather than via a diagonal, plus when I'm using a camera lens .

On my dob it's not been a problem as you look down on it , but as I want to travel light while I'm on tour in my campervan I've picked up a Sky watcher ST 102 , plus I have the Skymac 127 plus an assortment of camera lenses up to 600mm , Canon EF mount , Sony A mount and Sony E mount .

So I'm considering an upgrade . I've done quite a bit of searching both on this forum and over on Cloudy nights , but can't come to a conclusion .

Usage wise is for typically nice colourful images of such as M42 etc , so need to capture light such as hydrogen alpha .

I've been reading the advantages to use a dual band filter such as a Ha and OIII on a camera with the Baadar conversion .

So if I'm to use a dual band filter , or a straight Ha filter on it , would a full spectrum camera not give the same result as an astro modded camera ?

Both cameras will capture the wavelength of light required , the filters just block out the unwanted wavelengths.

I'm trying to decide if all I need is a new filter to go with the full spectrum camera I already have , or a new camera instead , or as well as , when used on a telescope .

Fitting the filter into the light path when using camera lenses might be a different problem , but using SLR lenses on a mirrorless body should just need adjustments on an adapters depth .

I'm not adverse to getting a new body for some uses , and the relevant filter as well, if that is necessary.

I just don't want to waste several hundred pounds , especially if I've already got the gear needed .

 

Thoughts please .

 

Thanks in advance , Neil .

 

 

 

Edited June 30 by neilt3
Edited for clarity .

[Elp]

An astro camera will have more sensitivity and quantum efficiency than a camera body, so might be worth a consideration instead.

The FSC Vs modded, I think they will give a similar result as long as you use a filter, you'd probably have to alter the colour balance a bit more on the former.

Filters+lens, depending on the lens I normally fit the filter out front (2 inch) as it's usually larger than the aperture, if they're canon lenses and I'm using an astro camera I use the ZWO adaptors (either the filter drawer one or the standard which can be unscrewed and you screw in a 2 inch filter inside).

[neilt3]

Thank you for replying.

I have also been looking at astro cameras but for different usage, namely planetary.

I'm thinking an APSC or full frame one would be out of my budget as main photography interests are landscapes , both film and digital .

Astro cameras are an area I still need to do a lot of reading up on , as it's very different than the type of photography equipment I'm familiar with .

No doubt I'll have questions to ask on that topic at some time , but first I need to do my homework on it .

So a regular camera that has been altered for for than just visible light is what in looking for here .

Looking at the current offerings ( unlike my EOS 450d ) just seem to have had one of the two filters removed from the sensor to improve the passage of light at the Ha end of the spectrum, but not UV or IR .

It seems to me a genuine Baadar conversion can be used as us , but the rest still need either a UV/ IR block filter or the narrow bandpass filter .

In which case , the full spectrum cameras I already have will already do that job , and I should just invest in the correct filters .

I think at the moment regardless of which camera is used ( full spectrum , astro modded DSLR or astro camera ) I'll be using filters when fitted to the telescope , and probably within a lens to body adapter for the regular cameras that are modded .

 

Thanks for mentioning the ZWO adapter for astro cameras and Canon lenses .

I wasn't aware of them .

 

Thanks again.

[Elp]

Talking of narrowband imaging, I assume you have a tracking or goto equatorial mount to use?

Astro cameras the main difference is you need a computer controller to control the device whereas the camera body is the controller. With the former though you have better tools at your disposal to dial in polar alignment, nail tight focusing and in the case of being connected to goto mounts the setup will go to target and be on target, even if you want to do multi panel mosaics. You can connect camera bodies to said computer controllers though there's a slight delay when taking images and transferring the data, you'll feel this properly when trying to fine tune focus.

[ollypenrice]

CCD cameras on the used market are the victims of an absolutely insane prejudice in favour of new CMOS cameras. Given the derisory prices they are fetching, I can see no reason whatever to struggle with vastly inferior DSLRs, modded or not. Just buy a used CCD. They remain just as good as they always were.

Olly

[neilt3]

On 02/07/2024 at 10:24, Elp said:

Talking of narrowband imaging, I assume you have a tracking or goto equatorial mount to use?

Astro cameras the main difference is you need a computer controller to control the device whereas the camera body is the controller. With the former though you have better tools at your disposal to dial in polar alignment, nail tight focusing and in the case of being connected to goto mounts the setup will go to target and be on target, even if you want to do multi panel mosaics. You can connect camera bodies to said computer controllers though there's a slight delay when taking images and transferring the data, you'll feel this properly when trying to fine tune focus.

Tracking devices is also an area that I'm looking at that has come on a long way since I last looked at what was available ten or fifteen years ago .

And certainly a big step up from my first telescope forty + years ago !

I need to work out if I'll be using the tracker on my heaviest scope/camera set up or just a camera and lens setup .

So I want to upgrade my camera setup first and see how I get on with shorter exposures stacked , before I look at enabling long exposures tracked .

Though at some point , I will go down that route, I just need to make sure I get the right tracker so I only buy once .

I've just bought a laptop that I can take away with me for computer controlled gear rather than trying to connect up to a desktop at home .

Just trying to avoid buying unnecessary or the wrong kit .

[neilt3]

18 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

CCD cameras on the used market are the victims of an absolutely insane prejudice in favour of new CMOS cameras. Given the derisory prices they are fetching, I can see no reason whatever to struggle with vastly inferior DSLRs, modded or not. Just buy a used CCD. They remain just as good as they always were.

Olly

One of the main reasons I'm asking about using a full spectrum DSLR/ mirrorless camera is because when I'm away I will always have one with me that I use for infrared photography.

So if that'll do exactly the same job as a camera modified for astro , then there's no point buying an additional camera .

The Canon DSLRs that I'm looking at seem to have just had one of the two filters removed to allow light at the Ha to pass easier , so I'd still need narrowband filters anyway .

In which case I might as well stick with my full spectrum NEX 6 .

I think my old EOS 450d does have the Baadar conversion in it though .

 

Regards to CCD astro cams , I am looking at a used mono CCD from ATIK , which seems cheap for what it is, so was wondering why .

That explains it .

The astro cameras would be an addition though , rather than instead of .

That side of things is all new to me , so I'm trying to do more research into it .

 

I would like to buy a current book , but most books on astrophotography seem very out of date compared to the gear that is currently available.

Any recommendations?

Edited July 3 by neilt3

[Elp]

One thing you're going to stumble upon straight away is the lack of a tracking mount. You need one for DSO imaging, there's no real way around it.

Some people have achieved it with short exposure images (like lucky imaging) but it takes larger aperture to get any sort of light and detail and you'll need to take thousands of images as opposed to hundreds with tracking.

The only DSO I've been able to capture at less than 10s exposures are starfields, open clusters, Orion nebula (but not the outer regions) and Andromeda Galaxy. If using a telescope or more than 50mm lens you definitely need tracking if you want to take sharpish images, maybe even autoguiding.

Books, Every Photon Counts, in this day and age you don't really need a book, I didn't, plenty of resources in forums and on YouTube.

[neilt3]

On 03/07/2024 at 15:41, Elp said:

One thing you're going to stumble upon straight away is the lack of a tracking mount. You need one for DSO imaging, there's no real way around it.

Some people have achieved it with short exposure images (like lucky imaging) but it takes larger aperture to get any sort of light and detail and you'll need to take thousands of images as opposed to hundreds with tracking.

The only DSO I've been able to capture at less than 10s exposures are starfields, open clusters, Orion nebula (but not the outer regions) and Andromeda Galaxy. If using a telescope or more than 50mm lens you definitely need tracking if you want to take sharpish images, maybe even autoguiding.

Books, Every Photon Counts, in this day and age you don't really need a book, I didn't, plenty of resources in forums and on YouTube.

I do realise tracking will be necessary for the best results , both for telescope and camera and lens and camera .

It'll be something that will do both .

As I'll also be using it with the SkyMak 127 , I'm thinking auto guiding is needed for planets , moon and sun .

But again, working the right combination of equipment is the thing to make sure I buy right .

Part of this is down to the combined weight of the gear used , hence my need to decide between a Canon DSLR or Sony mirrorless as the heaviest setup , and an astro camera being a lightweight combination.

I'm looking at seeing what I can do with the gear I currently have , if we ever have a clear , dark sky as soon as some new filters arrive .

Thanks for the book suggestion, I have been reading up on websites and forums , but I don't bother with YouTube.

Too many idiots on there , and you can't tell who knows their stuff and who's talking rubbish.

Thanks again for the help .

 

[Elp]

You don't need autoguiding for solar system, you don't even need a tracking mount technically but without you'll find your targets will move across the FOV surprisingly fast, especially with optics being at the longer focal length.

Be cautious about Sony mirrorless, you are aware for DSO imaging they generally have a star eater algorithm which usually can't be switched off, it shouldn't really be much of a problem because if you're doing long exposure tracked images your star signal should saturate the sensor enough for it not to be an issue. I've settled on an a6400 myself. Compared to an uncooled astro camera though the astro camera has so much less noise and captures more signal, you'd be better off with one for solar system too as your frame rate will be faster which is essential for getting more good images in less time where atmospheric seeing is "frozen", you then stack the best to get a good sharp result via software.

Regarding YT I've been watching the likes of Trevor Jones' Astrobackyard for years (he does AP as a full time job luckily so isn't a waffling type of person, he also does talks at various shows sometimes), Nico Carver of Nebula Photos is another. Other good reviewers are Cuiv the Lazy Geek and Sara Maths (Matthews). Adam Block is certainly one who knows their stuff too though I believe their content is more on the processing side.

[Elp]

You can image solar system with a camera body, people do it, I've done singular images of the moon with a DSLR for example. For planets due to the sensor being large, photography through an eyepiece or Barlow lens may be better as the targets are usually tiny and spread out over a few pixels without the added eyepiece optics.

[neilt3]

On 05/07/2024 at 02:31, Elp said:

You don't need autoguiding for solar system, you don't even need a tracking mount technically but without you'll find your targets will move across the FOV surprisingly fast, especially with optics being at the longer focal length.

Be cautious about Sony mirrorless, you are aware for DSO imaging they generally have a star eater algorithm which usually can't be switched off, it shouldn't really be much of a problem because if you're doing long exposure tracked images your star signal should saturate the sensor enough for it not to be an issue. I've settled on an a6400 myself. Compared to an uncooled astro camera though the astro camera has so much less noise and captures more signal, you'd be better off with one for solar system too as your frame rate will be faster which is essential for getting more good images in less time where atmospheric seeing is "frozen", you then stack the best to get a good sharp result via software.

Regarding YT I've been watching the likes of Trevor Jones' Astrobackyard for years (he does AP as a full time job luckily so isn't a waffling type of person, he also does talks at various shows sometimes), Nico Carver of Nebula Photos is another. Other good reviewers are Cuiv the Lazy Geek and Sara Maths (Matthews). Adam Block is certainly one who knows their stuff too though I believe their content is more on the processing side.

I believe it's the mk2 of the a7/a7r range onwards that's got the problem with star eating , so I had been looking an the original a7 astro modded or full frame .

But as I already have the full spectrum NEX 6 and either way  I'll need to be using filters , I'll see how I get on with that first .

I will also be looking at the astro cams , and still needing to look at the pro's and con's of colour v's B&W for my needs .

Likewise I'll look further into the tracking mount , the last one I used was a barndoor type one I made myself around 30+ years ago that I used my Minolta 7000AF on , probably with Ilford FP4 in !

Thanks for the suggestions on Youtube , I shall give them a look .

[Elp]

I always state use what you have first, even if it's a compact camera which I've done.

Be cautious of the A7 range. I had the s both mark 1 and 2, they produce images not like normal cameras. I don't know if it applies to the whole range, whether it was rectified mark 3 onward but the cameras I had the FF sensor is made up of two sensors in portrait, when you do long exposure imaging you get this residual sensor pattern on the LHS sensor, it can also happen on the RHS but you'll have a clear split in the image left and right, and because of the way it saves bit data not linear or something, you cannot take flats to compensate and end up with a concentric ring pattern across the image, you can even see it in singular images. The work around I've read is to image at high iso, more than you would normally. Definitely not normal camera behaviour and considering the s was advertised for low light, something that should have been picked up upon sooner but I guess the general populace don't get that involved in AP so don't know what to look out for.

For a mount you'd need to decide if you're likely to use a larger payload in future and decide accordingly, there are many decent smaller ones for camera body sized setups.

[neilt3]

On 05/07/2024 at 02:35, Elp said:

You can image solar system with a camera body, people do it, I've done singular images of the moon with a DSLR for example. For planets due to the sensor being large, photography through an eyepiece or Barlow lens may be better as the targets are usually tiny and spread out over a few pixels without the added eyepiece optics.

I have tried shooting planets with the camera connected directly to the telescope , but wasn't ideal , the astro cam and stacked images will be better .

I took this a a good while back after a few failed attempts with a Pentax Q just hand held over the eyepiece on a SkyMax 127  on a SkyTee II mount on the legs supplied on the EQ-5 .

Seeing was good and I got a good view of the moons too  , but the shot has a lot to be desired .

[Elp]

That's where stacking comes into play. Take hundreds of images (or record a video) within a minute or two, run them through Autostakkert or registax, select a small percentage of the best, and you'll get a good result. Then post process to eek out more detail.

One of the reasons astro cameras are better for planetary, they have smaller sensors so faster frames per second and better probability of capturing images during best seeing which is constantly changing, sometimes up to 150 images/frames per second if you get everything working nice.

[neilt3]

I've downloaded a copy of Sharpcap to try out on an cheapo digital eyepiece I picked up to try out .

It will give me a comparison on astro cams on a telescope compared to normal camera .

I think I had Registax on an old laptop years ago too .

I'll try a few to see which one I prefer before I look more at a good quality astro cam .

[carastro]

No brainer.  Dedicated cooled astro camera.  If you live in a LP location get mono so you can do narrowband.  

[neilt3]

14 hours ago, carastro said:

No brainer.  Dedicated cooled astro camera.  If you live in a LP location get mono so you can do narrowband.  

Ultimately, yes , I'll be getting a dedicated astro cameras .

And it does seem mono is the way to go , though I need to read up a lot more on it .

What software for processing the images do you recommend with mono cameras ?

As I tour around a lot in my campervan, some areas are excellent dark sky areas , others are badly light polluted, so that has to be taken into consideration.

 

The point of this thread is though astro modded cameras v's full spectrum cameras for when I'm traveling light .

I've always got my photographic gear with me , film and digital , shooting colour digital , full spectrum digital, infrared digital and black and white film .

So I have lenses with me from around 12mm full frame to 600mm which work on all those cameras .

Plus the telescope's.

Needless to say , I don't have everything in the same backpack!

So there's times I'll hike out to a location to take shots and need to travel light .

Tripod , 2 or 3 camera bodies and just the lenses I intend to use .

So if I'm to stay out doing astro shooting, a dedicated astro camera , a laptop computer to view it and power packs , and a hike both ways , just isn't happening .

But I am still interested in that route too , for when I'm parked up in a suitable area .

 

[Elp]

9 hours ago, neilt3 said:

laptop

You don't need a laptop nowadays. From the start I didn't want to use one outside so went the ZWO asiair route, control it all via an app on my mobile. So simple to use. The only issue is you can only use zwo astro cameras (and also zwo only automation like electronic focuser for example) with it, some Canon, Nikon and Sony bodies are supported. Lots of other manufacturers mounts are supported however.

Other alternatives are loading a raspberry pi with astroberry (free) or Stellarmate OS (paid), the latter also has a mobile app for control.

Or you can get a mini pc loaded with astro control PC software and use a tablet to interface with it.

[neilt3]

Technology's come on some since my barn door mount made out of two bits of scrap wood, a rusty gate hinge and a bit of threaded rod !

Nice to know they can be controlled via a phone or tablet, more convenient than a laptop in the field.

[Elp]

The humble barn door is still being used today.

[neilt3]

On 09/07/2024 at 11:03, Elp said:

The humble barn door is still being used today.

Still works .

Just easier ways of doing things , at a price.

[Elp]

Depends how far down the AP financial sink hole you want to go...

[GTom]

Unless you are doing the mod yourself, it makes zero financial(!) sense now to go for a shop conversion/buy a converted dslr. A cooled astrocam second hand could be found below £500. It will deliver better results even with a tiny 1" sensor and a smaller, cheaper scope!

Check for tec cooled asi 533mc, 585mc units in the classifieds, these are great modern sensors requiring far less calibration and PP magic than the predecessors.

Mono is a step up, you need to add filters+wheel to the budget. Still, a humble 533mm camera with a "cheap+small" 1.25" filter wheel will beat any FF dslr's/ilc's on the market. Even FOV matched, i.e. using a half size telescope!

Edited July 17 by GTom

[TiffsAndAstro]

I was shocked how much more smoothly stuff seems to work. That usb1 link from my 600d with 18 very warm megapixels took a long time to reach Nina. My astro cam is almost instanteous via usb3 and just 9 cool megapixels