Pros | Cons |
Affordable | Low battery life |
Easy to Use | Noisy |
Large field of View | Only available secondhand |
I recently got my hands on an old 15 year old DSLR camera for £50. I was just going to use it for general photography but thought perhaps I could try it for Astrophotography. I was not expecting amazing results, but by the end of the night, I was surprised.
It is early August, I used a M42 adaptor I screwed my Canon EOS 40D onto my Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED Telescope. It was a new moon and the skies where clear. It was the perfect opportunity to capture the Andromeda Galaxy.
I popped my telescope onto my Skywatcher EQM35 Mount and plugged everything in via PC. The software I used to image was APT. I set my gain to 1600 ISO and I then proceeded to take 60 second exposures for 2 hours.
I used 2 batteries within 1 hour of imaging, so I am glad I had 4. You can also purchase a Battery pack AC adaptor so you can run your DSLR from the mains instead.
After 2 and a half hours of imaging, the clouds rolled in, I took my calibration frames and packed everything away.
I stacked my exposures into Deep Sky Stacker and processing in Siril. I was able to bring out a nice clean and detailed image of the Andromeda Galaxy. It goes to show that you do not need an expensive camera to dip your toes into Astrophotography. So grab a cheap DSLR and lens and start shooting!
Below is my final image of the Andromeda Galaxy, taken with the Canon EOS 40D camera. (unmodified)
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