Camera exposure times?

[vulcan]

Can somebody give me some ball park exposure times for my Nikon D200. I'm assuming a 100 ASA speed rating to minimise noise. I have various lenses including a f1.4 50mm, a f3.5 18mm wide angle and several longer lenses with smaller apertures. The camera will be mounted piggy-back on a NextStar 6se. My subjects will be...

a. the Moon

b. Jupiter

c. any deep sky objects I can see

[Black Knight]

I don't know about the Nikon D200, but many DSLR users seem happy with around 800 ISO. That's what I tend to use with my Canon. As for exposure times, it's all down to how stable your mount is, how good your polar alignment is, and whether or not you are guiding. I've only recently managed to get up to 60 second exposures without star trailing, but many people can get up to 2 mins without a problem (unguided). Obviously if you are guiding you can go for longer exposures.

Is your 6SE on an altaz mount or an EQ mount? Altaz mounts aren't ideal for long exposure photography.

For the planets and the moon many people use simple webcams as opposed to a dedicated camera. Some of the results are absolutley stunning. My own attempts less so

[Beyond_Vision]

With a bright oject like the Moon the lowest ISO setting would be best. Jupiter will be very small in the field of view and will just look like a bright star unless you have a long focal length lens. If you intend to capture in a wide starfield view you may want to up the ISO to pick up more background stars.

Not had experience of using Nikon camers for astro but as the previous poster says ISO800 would be a good starting point.

Regards

Kevin

[Black Knight]

... as the previous poster says ISO800 would be a good starting point.

Regards

Kevin

I was fixated on thinking about DSO stuff, as that's what I do use mine for!

[ollypenrice]

Have a look here for a Canon user with no guiding issues, just as a piece of the jigsaw.

Olly

Deep Sky Astrophotography by Frans Kroon

[vulcan]

I don't know about the Nikon D200, but many DSLR users seem happy with around 800 ISO. That's what I tend to use with my Canon. As for exposure times, it's all down to how stable your mount is, how good your polar alignment is, and whether or not you are guiding. I've only recently managed to get up to 60 second exposures without star trailing, but many people can get up to 2 mins without a problem (unguided). Obviously if you are guiding you can go for longer exposures.

Is your 6SE on an altaz mount or an EQ mount? Altaz mounts aren't ideal for long exposure photography.

I have no idea, just got the thing. It tracks stars and planets with its computer and motors.

For the planets and the moon many people use simple webcams as opposed to a dedicated camera. Some of the results are absolutley stunning. My own attempts less so

Webcams tend to be very low resolution and use lossy image formats. The Nikon takes very high resolution pictures raw so even a small image is enlargeable.