My 5th time trying to image a seemingly easy target with something being off… This time I must have nudged the lens out of focus slightly and there was some dew forming on the lens that I hadn’t noticed. This hobby sure has a steep learning curve!
Still, decided to not throw away the whole attempt and did a quick processing. It’s about 45 minutes worth of 30 sec exposures at 500mm f6.3.
Feedback appreciated!
1 more question I forgot to ask earlier - what camera body are you photographing with?
When it stops snowing here, I’m looking forward to trying out my new Canon EOS R8, which I think is going to be a decent upgrade from my Rebel T3i (aka Canon 600D)… better low light performance off the bat, full frame which means I can stop doing crop sensor conversions, and higher MP count. Not to mention it’s lighter which will stress my tracker a bit less (with a heavy lens I was basically at the weight limit already).
and while you are at it, what 500mm lens are you using?
I’m using a stock Sony a6000. Light, cheap, decent low light performance. I’ll probably dip my toes into modifying some cheap dslr for astro before moving on to a dedicated astronomy camera in the future.
The lens is the newish TTArtisan 500mm f6.3. It costs less than pretty much anything with that kind of reach and is decent enough, though I see myself selling it in the future and getting a triplet refractor and a 6" newtonian astrograph.