[ATMoB-discuss] DSLR able to be used for astrophotography

[artakeda2682 at earthlink.net]

As Paul mentioned earlier, we have the Canon 20D of which has been superseded by the Canon 30D. Paul Cicchetti just got that camera so you can ask him how he likes it. I am currently taking astro images with my 20D and it does a great job. I am currently having tracking issues with my G-11 mount so I don't have a lot of images yet. Stay tuned.

Art Swedlow just bought the Canon rebel XT. He had first light in December and his 30 second M42 shot wasn't bad. The camera has mirror lockup but requires a special cable release to take images longer then 30 seconds. As for the noise, just take more light images, make sure that you have good dark images and set the camera for ISO 800. This appears to be the best setting for Canon cameras.   

You can probably guess that I am a Canon guy. I like their cameras and lenses, especially their "L" series. They are expensive but good. I have nothing against Nikon. They also make good cameras and lenses.

As for automated computer camera control I use Images Plus V2.8. The program will allow variable shutter settings, setting the interval between shots and setting the amount of images to be taken. According to the documentation you can also take a group of short exposures, then a group of long exposures or mix up the sequence any way you like. The program will also take images and analyze them for focus using the Full Width Half Max routine or you can use the averaging routine. Once you have taken your images, this program will also convert your RAW images to FITS, align and stack your light, bias, flat and dark frames. It also has a few image enhancing tools that work reasonably well. At this point you can convert the images to TIFF and move them into Adobe Photoshop. Images Plus will work with most of the recent Canon and Nikon cameras. It also costs less then MaxDSLR. I bought my copy from OPT so that I could also get the special shutter release/USB adapter for the PC. 

Al

-----Original Message-----
>From: "Bernie Volz (volz)" <volz at cisco.com>
>Sent: Jan 15, 2007 2:53 PM
>To: Bern Kosicki <kosicki at verizon.net>, atmob-discuss at atmob.org
>Subject: RE: [ATMoB-discuss] DSLR able to be used for astrophotography
>
>Hi:
>
>Yes, dpreview is a great site for detailed reviews of cameras. And, yes
>you can "drive" the camera by PC provided you have apppropriate
>software.
>
>MaxDSLR is a software program that controls the camera via the USB
>camera interface. It can support Nikons, Canons, and I think others.
>(For the Nikon cameras, you must put the interface into the correct mode
>to use MaxDSLR -- the default is for the camera not to be in this mode
>and the MaxDSLR software doesn't explain this.)
>
>You could develop your own software to perform these functions but I
>have not found the detailed specifications (there is some Unix shareware
>software with source code that does many of the functions, but I don't
>recall the URL.)
>
>For the Egypt eclipse, I was looking around for some software that would
>allow fully automated eclipse sequencing, but alas found nothing that
>was available for Nikon cameras (it looked as if there was more
>available for Canon, but as I ignored those packages that didn't support
>Nikon I can't say for sure). I wanted a package where I could specify a
>start time (or use a keyboard trigger), specify exposure settings, and
>deltas between exposures.
>
>You can lock up the mirror, but this can only be used to clean the CCD
>(such as when dust falls on it); not for exposures.
>
>- Bernie
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Bern Kosicki [mailto:kosicki at verizon.net] 
>Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 2:03 PM
>To: Bernie Volz (volz); atmob-discuss at atmob.org
>Subject: RE: [ATMoB-discuss] DSLR able to be used for astrophotography
>
>At 01:45 PM 1/15/2007, Bernie Volz \(volz\) wrote:
>
>>Though sadly the D70 (at least) can't accept a standard shutter release
>>cable and you have to manually hold down the shutter --
>
>Bernie,
>
>Can you drive the camera by a PC connected to it?  I believe some folks
>do 
>this with Canon cameras.  If so, this would (should) allow arbitrary
>timed 
>exposures in B mode.
>
>I'm having a hard time uncovering whether or what the PC control
>functions 
>are in DSLRs.  By the way, the best site in comparing cameras that I've 
>found is http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/    You can scroll through
>about 
>25 pages if detailed info on each camera (except for specifics on the PC
>
>connectivity which I haven't found).  If you are shopping around for a 
>camera, I'd suggest looking at this site.
>
>They also have photos showing the noise in images at different ISO 
>settings- in this case, the D40 seems to outperform the Cannon Rebel XT.
>
>Another nice feature for astro photography would be to be able to lock
>the 
>mirror in the up position (to avoid shaking the scope) and take a series
>of 
>long time exposures to be later registered and stacked.
>
>Bernie K
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