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Astrophotography with a dslr

Author	Post

Posted by deepind: Tue Nov 22nd, 2016 01:25

1^st Post

Hi..

Hi all,I have nikon d3200 dslr and 18-140mm lens, can i take pictures of deep sky objects like nebula,galaxies with this or i need to buy any power lens like nikon 70-300mm or 55-300mm???Thank u

Posted by Robert: Tue Nov 22nd, 2016 01:51

2^nd Post

Welcome to the forum Deepind, I do a little astro photography but only large area stuff.

My understanding is that for detail and deep sky you need to use a powerful dedicated astro telescope on a powered polar mount, to capture images, add a camera. Pretty much any camera would do although a lightweight DSLR such as the D3200 has it's advantages.

With the camera/lens you mention, I guess you may be a tenth of the way there. It's more astronomy and less photography.

The exposure times you will need to capture these faint objects could run into hours, (hence the powered polar mount) you would probably need to take multiple 20 second exposures and layer them in specialised software to intensify the image. Longer individual exposures would result in serious 'noise' in the image which would obliterate the subject.

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Robert.

Posted by deepind: Tue Nov 22nd, 2016 01:52

3^rd Post

hi..is 70-300mm lens good for astro or any other lens?

Posted by Robert: Tue Nov 22nd, 2016 02:03

4^th Post

As my previous post, a 500mm lens (non zoom) with a X2, making a 1000mm lens is just about good enough for the Moon, to capture good detail. The 70-300 (latest version) while a good lens won't cut the mustard for deep space I'm afraid.

What you are up agains is the rotation of our planet, any exposure of more than 10 seconds with a longer lens like a 300 will result in blur from the movement. the longer the lens, the worse the blur and the shorter the permissible exposure.

There are tables and calculators galore on the internet to allow you to calculate the allowable exposures. To improve things a little use VERY fast lenses like f1.4 but longer lenses don't come that fast and those which do are horrendously expensive.

For wider sky stuff I'm told the Samyang range may be affordable (for some!) but expect to return several lenses before you get a really sharp sample.

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Robert.

Posted by deepind: Tue Nov 22nd, 2016 02:41

5^th Post

i hv celestron astromaster130eq telescope..the pictures i took by attachng my dslr was not good ...

Posted by Robert: Tue Nov 22nd, 2016 06:00

6^th Post

Unfortunately this is one of those branches of photography which get really difficult, really quickly . o.O

All I can suggest is looking on astro sites...

http://www.lonelyspeck.com/how-to-make-an-amazing-photo-of-the-milky-way-galaxy/

This is one I have used, it's not exactly what you are looking for I know but it has some useful info and might lead you in the right direction.

You absolutely need a motorised polar mount for photography, unless you can use some tricks...

For example median blending...

http://petapixel.com/2013/05/29/a-look-at-reducing-noise-in-photographs-using-median-blending/

There are loads more excellent places to learn about this. I know very little except it's difficult and expensive! o.O

I stick with the more basic stuff, like this: D300S, Coniston Water and Fells

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Robert.

Posted by amazing50: Wed Nov 23rd, 2016 00:30

7^th Post

Knowing very little except it's difficult and expensive is knowing a great deal about astro.

NASA has plenty of great pix that are available in high res for free.

I still do a few star trails and time lapse with wide angle lenses and some solar events but nothing that is too hard on the wallet.

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There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept ;~) Mike Grace

Posted by Robert: Wed Nov 23rd, 2016 01:55

8^th Post

amazing50 wrote:
NASA has plenty of great pix that are available in high res for free.
Which makes it all the more enticing Mike!

Why the hell can't we ordinary photographers take photographs like that??? Well NASA has a huge budget and the highest qualified personal to achieve it, thats why.

But surely we can try to get a little of the action, it's a fascinating sphere (I guess that's a pun!). Well we can but it's a very steep learning curve, I looked up the telescope the OP mentions, it's a fairly basic 'scope but with a few mods it can be made to do the job quite well, things like Saturn and Jupiter, moons and near space objects can be viewed and photographed, but not out of the box. I think it can be fitted with a motor drive too.

There are instructions on-line on how to make a motorised polar mount for very little with a few odds and ends bits that are cheaply available.

I would bin the tripod and make a solid welded up frame to mount it much more solidly or here in the UK we have what are known as trig points, concrete pillars on tops of hills and mountains which are used by the ordinance survey to mount their surveying instruments. Some are reasonably accessible and not too far from roads, they would be a good place to mount a telescope which would be very solid and provide a repeatable location. They might even provide a lock-on orientated accurately on North? Just a thought...

Again the OP has failed to give us a clue as to his/her whereabouts... We don't need the house number and street. The county or state, even country would help a lot.

JK, can we not add a little note to the new members signing up pages explaining why it's so much better for members to reveal even a basic location?

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Robert.

Posted by jk: Wed Nov 23rd, 2016 03:19

9^th Post

Re:
JK, can we not add a little note to the new members signing up pages explaining why it's so much better for members to reveal even a basic location?

I'll see what is possible.
Usuallyit means either adding some custom code that may break in the future. I am away at the moment so it may be a while before I get round to this.

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Still learning after all these years!
https://nikondslr.uk/gallery_view.php?user=2&folderid=none

Posted by Robert: Wed Nov 23rd, 2016 15:11

10^th Post

No rush, we have got by so far but it seems almost every new member fails to reveal their locality which in many cases does impede the responses being as appropriate as they might otherwise be.

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Robert.

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