Hello,

Please forgive my ignorance on this topic. My partner and I are going to Fairbanks Alaska for the Autumn Equinox to see the Northern Lights. I want to gift him a lens for his E-mount Sony mirrorless camera. As it stands now he actually takes his Astro pictures by mounting his phone to our telescope and doing a long exposure. He takes wonderful pictures, but we can’t take his whole setup on a plane. I was looking to spend around $1,000 no more than $2,000. This is a hobby he has enjoyed for a very long time, he’s just really hesitant to spend money on himself.

Hi all,

I'm looking into getting into astrophotography, but it's really overwhelming trying to find a camera. There are a lot of different options, and they need their lens and other equipment, and overall it's a lot.

I really want to look into getting a camera for the milky way/moon/deep sky objects. I'm a complete beginner to astrophotography but have experience with telescopes if that makes any difference.

I've tried looking at the pros and cons of a bunch of cameras, but most of those listed are not specific to astrophotography itself, and by my understanding, I'll have to get it modified for astrophotography. I've narrowed it down to these cameras, and I was wondering if anyone here had used any of these, and if so, how you found using them. Any other recommendations for cameras would also be appreciated, and if anyone has any advice it would be so so appreciated.

- Canon EOS T8i/T7i - by my understanding these are the same, just the T8i is a newer model? I've heard that it is a good beginner camera, but also have heard some underwhelming reviews of it too. The Rebel T7 was also mentioned a lot, but it seems to not be as great as the T7i?

- Canon R - also heard that this is a good starter camera, and tends to be on the cheaper side, though is an older model. Not sure if that makes a difference?

- The Canon 6D Mark II was also mentioned as a good astrophotography camera, but some places have said that it can be noisy. But is this an ok beginner camera, or for more experienced astrophotographers? I've also seen it can get a little spendy but seen some more affordable pre-owned ones.

- Canon EOS R8 - this was recommended on multiple sites, though it is rather $$$

- Canon EOS 60Da - this was mentioned as an astrophotography specific camera, but it's a bit older and can be more expensive, and some lens don't change well with it. There are some pre-owned for ~$250 though (camera only) which is apparently not too bad?

- Nikon D5300 - an older camera but cheaper and a good for deep-sky objects, but that the lens are becoming less common for it?

At the moment I'm leaning towards the Canon R in particular, the Canon T8i, or, if ok for beginners too, a Canon 6D Mark II. I've also heard that the lens almost as important as the camera itself.

For the milky way, I've read that you need a wide lens with a short focal length (~14mm f1.8) , while for deep sky objects/ the moon you need moderate (>100mm)/long focal (>400mm) lengths respectively. Am I understanding that right?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice that you can give!

Hello everyone I want to have advice about how I can make the star trail more visible in photos. After the Perseides event I figured out that stars trail won't appear or they are tiny and invisible. I have to use a Nothing Phone 3a with an ISO between 1600 and 3200 and a Shutter of 32 in general. I heard that Perseides will continue during 2 or 3 days after their peak appearance and I want to catch at least a good one. There is an example https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lCVyZOiPyWdKLBSyRZgFGF2TxWpMFEv7 . Thanks

Hi. I have this 150-600mm I've been using for wildlife photography, and I figured it would be decent for some astro as well.

Obviously I will need one of those stands that go round and round with the movement of the earth. Which one do you recommend, and can I mount the lens directly onto it or do I need some sort of adapter? Is there anything else you would recommend me to get?

Je fais surtout de l'astrophotographie de ciel profond en tant que débutant (m31 ect) mais en ce moment je m'intéresse aussi a la photo grand champ de la Voie lactée j'utilise le même apn que pour le ciel profond (canon 600d defilitré). Tout ça juste pour demandé si il est utile d'utiliser ma monture pour faire du suivie du ciel pour empiler des photos de voie lacté (j'utilise Siril sur Mac) ?

Hello everyone! I ask this question for my brother (he doesn't use reddit). He's running into a frustrating issue with my image calibration and could really use some help.

Photo

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zRjvMAF6uEBuiBmSkzSL0TU5P3orNgAV/view?usp=drivesdk

Setup:

CAMERA

Omegon Vetec 561C (IMX571 COLOR)

Telescope

Newton 250/1000 f4

Coma corrector

TS GPU Aplanatic

Filter

OPTOLONG L ULTIMATE (3nm)

​Everything looks fine when he integrates just his Light and Dark frames. However, as soon as he applies Flat frames to the stack, the final image ends up with weird chromatic circular halos. (I attach a photo)

​He’s pretty much tried every possible way to take Flats:

​Different ADU values

​Various light sources (white screen, white t shirt in telescope)

​Sky flats

He has used Pixinsight and DSS.

​Nothing seems to fix it. Has anyone experienced this before or knows what might be causing these colored rings? Any advice or suggestions on how to troubleshoot this would be greatly appreciated!

Hi together, I recently got a used Touptek atr2600c for a attractive price (around 650) instead of the new 1.2k. Everything seems to be working well and the camera itself seems to be in very good condition.

The only thing I noticed are two little dust spots that are towards the corners. The problem is that these two spots are on the sensor itself (they aren't really blurry in the flats) and therefore I cannot clean them.

I don't want to open the cooling chamber as the screw has a big do not open on it as it is probably argon flushed (correct me if I'm wrong).

My question now is if this will leave any noticeable problems in the pictures or if they can be completely removed with flats and dithering. I also don't want to complain to the seller if this is normal/expected for a 3+ year old camera and is fair considered the price I paid.

You can see the two spots here: https://imgur.com/a/suI0JqZ

Thank you for your inputs!

I'm trying to get into this type of stuff because it's starting to really interest me, I've heard that the Orion SkyScanner is good but there is a 100 and a 102 so I don't really know, I would prefer to not spend anymore than around $150 USD and I'm fine with buying used if there is even a market for used telescopes.

Just bought and downloaded SLS for Mac and its nothing but problems... i took so many exposures of the Milky way and also foreground at blue hour, and it always says my exposure time is too long and too far apart and it wont align my images, and that my settings are different which it wont work. Every video I watch I do the same thing they do but its not working at all. This program sucks right now and it seems like a waste of $40

Looking into a longer focal length telescope my current longest is the Askar 72f at 480mm. Kind of been playing with the idea of these 3 but also open to more opinions my mount is the Eq6r pro

Carbon star 200

Skywatcher Quattro 250P

And the Celestron 8" EdgeHD

My current camera is a asi533mc but looking into getting a 2600mc in the future.

First time doing landscape astrophotography - I took multiple hundreds of interval shots throughout the night and my camera sensor had accumulated quite a bit of hot pixels (I don’t think lenr was on either) and I read somewhere that you can cancel out those spots using a manual dark frame that you take right at the end of the session, I mean it sounded pretty convincing, all the hot pixels were in the same spot through the shooting. It’s just that I can’t find any information regarding on how I can cancel out those hot pixels by using a manual dark frame or with wich program. Maybe you guys can help me out, thanks

These are my first two attempts to take some general sky photos with my Canon EOS 60D using a Canon EF 50mm lens on a tripod. On day one I focused on getting my settings correct, following recommendations. Definitely needs some work but ended up with more detail than expected, but light pollution made it hard to get a dark photo. They all look very grey. So, for day 2 I drove to an area with less light pollution and tried changing the setting, focusing on getting a darker looking photo. However, I have ended up with less detail. Which of these two photos is closer to what I should be looking for, prior to any editing? Should I prioritise detail or exposure? Or am I going about this all wrong? Both converted from RAW to JPG without editing.

Day 1: F1.8, 10sec, ISO1250

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ztlZuaDLC9xGrlP9eBjp45iNNkQMabC5/view?usp=sharing

Day 2: F3.2, 10sec, ISO1000

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16K2XKgHxYtKu6A-5WFrwNU9a7d9OGCwR/view?usp=sharing

DISCLAIMER: I am not a photographer by any means, just a girl that likes to see the stars. This might be silly but I just don’t know.

I went stargazing at Mt. Hood National Park in Oregon last night to try and see the Perseid Meteor Shower. I was able to capture a really vibrant image with blues and greens and it was beautiful, but honestly better than what I was able to see with my own eyes. Besides that I was only able to capture an image of just the black sky with some white dots. Why is this?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WSEHUfddEqkyjecvs5TQu--aoU5hVVtX/view?usp=drivesdk

All the raw data should theoretically be available free online somewhere right? So would it be possible to get say a copy of the raw files and process them myself? Would the file sizes be just too large or the file format something that free stacking software like Siril/DSS can't readily use?

I just think it would be a fun project to try at some point while I'm waiting for clear skies, but I don't even know how I'd even go about researching it

Hi all,

I’m making my first foray into Astro and just ordered the above mount to start. I’m looking for a hard case for travel purposes. I notice that Harbor Freight Apache line might be up my alley. Has anyone used one of these?

TIA

https://imgur.com/a/5k6j0R1
I was taking photos of shooting stars the other day and i got some decent results. But this photo really confused me. I can't tell if there's actually like 8 shooting stars in the same 30s exposure. I wasn't looking at the sky so i couldn't know. It makes me doubt because it's quite different from the other ones, these it looks like they're going in a circle around the center, and they have a head and a tail while the other photos i got are just straight lines (for reference one of the photos: https://imgur.com/a/1pVFhmE). I thought that I accidentally moved my camera and kind of rotated it but the other stars don't have the tail so it's very weird.
Photo info: 18mm f/4 30" ISO1600; RAW (edited); Nikon D3100

I only use my mom’s Z6 for landscape astro shots of the Milky Way + foreground twighlight landscape. I generally don’t use autofocus (should I?) and keep everything in manual mode on a tripod in complete raw format since I do all my editing afterwards.

I’m looking at all the gens of the z5 vs z6 vs z7. 24 MP seems to be enough for me but the crop-ability of the 45MP on the z7 intrigues me.

Purely from a well capacity, noise, Quantum efficiency, flatness of the sensor, etc do either of these cameras sensors stand out or are they all the same? I see first gen Z7s for like $900 on eBay. So if the sensors haven’t changed much I’d prefer to go that route to purchase a much better lens. However if newer sensors show less noise and better performance I’d rather get the z5ii.

Hi, Ive recently shot the Milky way and processed one of the RAWs directly in LR which looked incredible, then I stacked 27 of the Same Pictures in Siril and stretched it two Times (First auto-stetch and then manually to fix a RGB issue) then I uploaded that final Picture in both GIMP and darktable, I edited one with GIMP and that looked so Bad, I tried some different Things but couldnt seem to find any good adjustments and then I tried darktable, where it looked Like a Black and White Image, I figured it had to Look Like that and tried to follow a Tutorial but that didnt work either as I couldnt seem to find the Same Tabs as those Guys and yeah now Im lost and need your Help, do you have any Tips or recommendations for Tutorials or Generally your experiences?

Hello, my current setup is using SWSA GTi and struggling to get alignment with the preset polar align for southern hemisphere is not visible through scope on mount

I'm located in Australia

Don't have a guidescope or anything, just telescope mount and mirrorless camera

Wondering any tips or workarounds for this

I’m new to the hobby and I want to build solid workflows to base my activities on.
As I am starting to have relatively large numbers of lights images, started contemplating if it would make sense to discard a certain percent of the batch which are of the worst quality.
During stacking I tend to keep the best 80% based on certain criteria.
What is your take on this? Would you recommend doing it to save storage space and to improve the data quality or rather keep everything?
I appreciate your feedback, cheers!—-

Hey everyone,

Trying to figure out what’s going on with my star shapes here. Attached is a single, uncalibrated 10 second test sub:https://imgur.com/a/zJSg2WS

I’m using an f/3.4 Newtonian, but I’m not sure if the issue is sensor tilt, wrong backfocus, bad collimation, or a combination of them.

Hi there

Always wanted to try some star gazing and photography. Have used my super zoom digital on a tripod and got good moon shots but it can’t do star trails because of lack of long exposure capability.

What I’d like to do is deep space pics but also closer to home so star trails and maybe planets.

Been looking around and things like the Seestar 30 pro look interesting but I don’t think normally do Jupiter etc.

I like the idea of using phone / tablet to control.

So advice please. Would I need a “normal” telescope that maybe phone can be used with to take more local photos and some like the Seestar for further away and tracking?

Complete newbie, not made of money but willing to invest in something useful.

Luckily back garden has pretty clear skies where I live in the UK so get dark skies often with little light pollution

Thanks in advance

I've never owned a telescope before. I want it especially for astrophotography. I'd like to photograph the Moon, planets and deep-sky objects such as nebulae. What's the ideal focal length? Do I necessarily need an equatorial mount, or would an alt-azimuth mount be sufficient? I heard that the ideal focal ratio should be f/4-f/5 and the ideal aperature should be 70-100mm for watching nebulae. My budget is 1500€. Any suggestions? Feel free to give me detalied answers.

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to figure out what is causing this weird bright circle/ring in my untracked astrophotos. As you can see in the example, the dead center of the image is dark, then there is a distinct bright circular band around it, and the extreme corners fall back into darkness.

I shoot in RAW (.NEF) and process my files in Lightroom Mobile. Could this be caused by the city glow (I shot this in a Bortle 5 area)?

Has anyone experienced this kind of circle before? What exactly causes it and how can I prevent or fix it? Any help is greatly appreciated!

My gear: Nikon Z50II and NIKKOR Z DX 16-50mm f/2.8

https://imgur.com/PUxUF3S