Astrophotography EOS 60Da

do you need to hook it up to some kind of telescope to get those galaxy type shots like ?

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and

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I have tried in vain for weeks with my Alpha A700 and a 50mm f1.8 and I just can;t seem to get anything decent. I know light pollution doesn't help, but I have seen some people take some really beautiful star skies in urban areas and I can;t seem to get it right :(
 
depends on how you taking the shot. if you doing it with just the camera & lens. the trick is to manual focus in the sky, then if their a zoom function at give 10x use that to get the focus even sharper. once that done you want iso 200-800 and exposure time between 8 to 15 seconds. place a black piece of paper in front of the camera len, press shutter button & remove black paper from lens. thing to watch out for due to the fact the earth is moving and exposure longer than 15 seconds and will you get star trails to combat this you need a motorizes tripod with tracking function so that the tripod moves with it target. method two is attach camera to telescope their two methods to do this eye piece projection which is were camera & lens is looking through a telescope eye piece. (telescope>eye piece>camera & len) second method which is more common in astrophotography is camera body is attach directly to the telescope bypassing any eye pieces this method is basicly turning the telescope into on big ass lens.

ps here a link to youtube video done as part of the bbc stargazing live that covers astrophotography and has the instruction on how to do just camera and lens method http://youtu.be/G83zI-jqvWw
 
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just corrected my earliar post as i put 15mins instead of the correct 15 seconds. also i believe thier is a filter that can be bough that helps combat the issue of light pollution if you live in area where it a lot. also i think but i haven't tried it myself is that if you have an nd filter that on the camera can possible help cut the amount of light pollution down if you doing a camera and lens only.
 
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I had a very teeny dabble with proper astro-photography the other day. Well, I saw it all happen with a proper telescope setup etc. It is a different ballgame entirely :)
 
I'm tempted to go out and get some starry skies tonight if the snow stops. It'll be my first time out of the city so might be less light pollution. Liking the new Sig btw phate
 
valkia said:
I'd love to get into it, but don't really know what equipment I would need
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I'm sure there is a thread knocking about which explains what you need. From what I remember, as soon as you move into astrophotography the price increases, but just looking can be quite cheap.

I'm going to the other halfs parents this Easter (which is in the middle of nowhere in West Wales) so will try and take advantage of the low light pollution. :)
 
valkia said:
I'd love to get into it, but don't really know what equipment I would need
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as i posted in my earilar post the video link give you a basic understanding of slr astrophotography. step one is just using your slr/dslr camera with lens mounted on a tripod. next step is buying a telescope to hook your camera up. problem with this is cost a lot. between £700 - £2000 depend on how good a setup you want. if you want to put you feet in the water i suggest buying a cheap telescope (£50-£170) and the various bits and piece need to hook your camera up to it. if you like then buy much better telescope for better image taking and for more powerfull optic on it. tracking function can be gotten with the computerize telescope so that you can track object for long exposures. now the better tracking setup for non computerzise telescope cost from £600-£1000. their is also a system called astotrac which can be used to mount telescopes and cameras to track planet,moons and star it rater easy to setup so if you were on the go could setup it up with in minutes to track. current their the ofter for a full astotrac system (tripod>ball head>astotrac) for £769. as for what you need to connect your camera to a telescope i post items names but no link to site for you, later on.

as for telescope the follow are brand name telescope makers but are very good.

meade
skywatcher
celestron

ps celestron do a spotting scope called a c90 mak(£170) which is 90mm Aperture with a Focal Length of 1200mm which is pretty powerful, has buildin tripod adpter on it so it can be attach to any standard camera tripod and has a port for camera on it, so you would only need to buy a T-Adapter for your make of camera. now this is good scope which has a Internal flip mirror system for terrestrial and astronomical use so if you put it on camera tripod you good to go but their no tracking function so you have to move it by hand so no longer exposure of more than 10sec on stars and 5 to 20s on the moon but good for short exposures.
 
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The inspiration of this thread took me outside with my 70-300mm lense to try and get a picture. Didn't get a very big or clear one :( oh well

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Can barely make out the cheese :(
 
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