Lenses for canon

[andyhicks]

Hi,

Ive been dying to get into astrophotography for ages so I've splashed out a bit and bougt a second hand setup, well looking forward to it all arriving!

It comes with a canon 20d, and this will be my first dslr camera. Im off to corfu again this year and the sky there last year was amazing so im hoping to take my new kit with me. It might not be possible to take the whole thing so if I was to take the mount and camera what lens would you suggest I look into buying? Id just like to get some nice shots of the milky way and possibly some planets.

I took my digi camera last year on a cheap tripod, got a sea view and venus in the shot and just took a picture every few minutes while i ate my dinner on the beach. Best thing ive ever done, its top. flick through the pics and venus sets in the sky...brilliant! had to stop when it got dark because the camera could only pick up venus but no sea background. hoping to do the same this year only a bit better!

Its my birthday soon so hopefully I could get it then, in which case it would have to be fairly inexpensive. I aim to get the canon 1000d when i know a bit more so it would be good if the lens could fit them both

cheers

[steppenwolf]

I'd be tempted to make things easy for yourself and concentrate on wide field so a 50mm would be ideal giving you a good chance of some exciting images without star trailing.

[andyhicks]

Thanks!

Theres a few canon ef 50mm f/1.8 lenses about and they're relatively cheap, you think I should try this?

Rememeber im just starting out so with wide field, just exactly how wide is it? Im guessing the wider the field the larger area of sky i would be imaging, right? would this lens be ok for say..the pleiades?

[steppenwolf]

Rememeber im just starting out so with wide field, just exactly how wide is it? Im guessing the wider the field the larger area of sky i would be imaging, right? would this lens be ok for say..the pleiades?

By wide, I mean the whole of the important bits of Orion. The Pleiades would look pretty small in a 50mm lens I'm afraid.

The following is not a great image but it shows a typical wide field from a 50mm lens. The Cygnus region of the Milky Way:-

[Psychobilly]

I see Steve beat me to it...

Heres another image with the Canon EF 50mm f1.8 MkII (the nifty 50)

The "W" that is Cassiopea with the Heart Nebula on the Left hand side and at the same level but right of center the Pacman Nebula

IIRC this is about 1 1/2 hours worth of 4 min exposures taken with the Modified 1000D on the EQ3-Pro (unguided) I normally step the lens down to around f4 to improve star shapes around the edges of the Field.

Billy....

[andyhicks]

Thanks, im think im pretty sold on the 50mm!

Both of thise pictures are wicked cool and Ill be very happy if I could produce something like that. Its pretty cheap too so Ive go a chance of getting one. Before I got this setup I was reading about and the canon 1000d seems to be a favourite so for no other reason than that I was looking at the purchase, now ive got a 20d instead and considering ive never owned a DSLR do you think I can leave the 1000D for now? i know its got noise reduction and Ive learnt that this subtracts the dark frames automatically. Has anyone used this feature? is it better to cut the time down and do it on the computer instead or does it work pretty well?

Other than coupling my old digi camera to the 130p for imaging im totally new to this so ive got a ton of questions!

Im going to be using a stellarvue at1010 and the setup does come have a baaer uv/ir cut filter but do I urgently need anything else to get the best out of it? I was thinking of a field flattener for a start and what about something for achro aberration?

Oh and what about these narrowband filters, eventually one day id love to take those stunning pics you see around here of nebulae in beatiful colour. I must say Ive gotten myself quite confused with all the filter talk.

Something else ive remembered too. With the camera and scope am I likely to see colour difference in stars? B cygni is one of my favourite sights and id love to get the colours in an image. Can you use the camera in black and white and use colour filters? i dont know why i would do that im just trying to get my head around it all!

ive got plenty more but ill leave it at that for now

thanks a lot

[andyhicks]

Physcobilly,

is that a double cluster in the bottom right? jeesus I see cassiopea all the time but wow, I mean Ive seen the double cluster through my 130p but i cant get my head around the relative size of that nebula, its big! and its been there all along!!

[jgs001]

With a tracking mount, the 50mm is a little cracker... on a tripod... you're limited to about 8 seconds which is a bit short. It looks like the 20d supports EF-S lenses (designed for crop sensor cameras) so you could look at the 18-55 lens (I've the IS one and it works nicely) and can be had for similar money, if not a bit less second hand to the 50mm..

Here's a couple of shots I've done with the 50mm (they were tracked on the HEQ5..)

As Steve said, Orion is a perfect fit

Auriga

[andyhicks]

Your getting me exited now, ha. So your telling me I can make images like these?! that would be amazing! and this is the just the camera right?? Im getting a vixen GP so Im hoping that will do the job. I wonder what images i would get with the scope?!?!

Ill have a look into that lens, Ive no idea what it is but ill find out! I think if i can get pics like these with the 50mm lens then its gotta be done!

e2a: that lens does look pretty good though! aw no, which do i get now?

[jgs001]

I don't know much about the Vixen GP, but from experiments, I've found that a reasonably well setup EQ1 with my 450d and 50mm lens can manage 2 to 3 minutes with the cheap motor... So I'd expect the GP to go for longer... My shot details are in the borders (it's so I can remember what I did ) if you can achieve that sort of shot length, you're laughing...

[Ludd]

The moment you start taking shots through the scope rather than just the camera with the 50mm lens, you enter a world of polar alignment pain and periodic error correction nightmares! I've used the nifty fifty quite a bit - here's a short exposure shot of the milky way taken on a static tripod - but I've not yet had much joy with getting my mount (a Vixen GP) to track well enough for long expsoures through a scope.

[Psychobilly]

Physcobilly,

is that a double cluster in the bottom right? jeesus I see cassiopea all the time but wow, I mean Ive seen the double cluster through my 130p but i cant get my head around the relative size of that nebula, its big! and its been there all along!!

Double Cluster is bottom left and the bubble nebula is in the top right... just out of framed to the left of the heart nebula is the Soul Nebula

[andyhicks]

Oh no! well I intend to do the best I can with what I have before I buy even more stuff! Ive got an eq2 aswell but that doesnt have motors, still I've got enough to get me started. Im easily pleased, any sort of pictures would be awesome!

Im looking forward to taking the camera on holliday, the sky there was the best ive ever seen! might only be able to take a static tripod though.

[Psychobilly]

For short folcal lenght lenses like the nifty 50 I just do a rough PA using the polarscope and dont bother with guiding ( well not until Skywatcher get it working properly on the EQ3-Pro) and I can easily get 4 min subs out of the EQ3 Pro...

If I use the HEQ-5 then I can run that guided...

Billy...

[MartinB]

If you want to do Milky Way shots than you might want to look at very wide field lenses. The Canon 18-55 IS lens that John mentions is supposed to be a very good performer and is cheap. Can often be purchased second hand since people sell on the lens which came with the camera. The IS version is supposed to be much better optically than the earlier non IS 18-55 (nothing to do with the IS BTW)

The Milky Way shot below was taken from the small ionian island of Kastos - about 50 miles south of Corfu. It was taken with a Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm with a Canon 1000D. I used an astrotrac for this but at short focal lengths it becomes possible to get reasonable exposures before trailing appears, especially using a fast lens.

Worth having a look on ebay for old M42 thread mounts. Adaptors to convert to Canon fit are readily available and cheap. The lenses will be manual of course but not an issue for astro work.

I have a Vixen Super Polaris and it tracks very well. If the mount performs any less than extremely well they can benefit from a strip down, clean and regrease.

If you really want to feel inspired have a look at this site

The World at Night (TWAN) in Photos and Videos

[MikeWilson]

If you're willing to crop, then go ahead and try 25 second subs. Once cropped down you won't see any noticeable trailing at 50mm (85mm equivalent).