INCLUDING DARK SKY TRAVELS NIGHTSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY AMATEUR a ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY Cover image by Maroun Habib «*» = 2 oe a ' x - Ce es eee a? Reem ee ae aOL) Basel eae REL Gel aCe is MYT EQUATORIAL MOUNT eet td ry precision tracking with 7 areseconds or less rao Ne Ea oLororo aso Rorol old Cena cerU7y Cees etree ee hese e peak-to-peak periodic error - before PEC ee ee ee Cees Se ete ee) 50 lb weight capacity, while only weighing 34 oe Ib, ROK: Supported. Includes the SkyX Pro software so you can ieee Cee Ret) Cena ra Reps neta] $6,000.00 $1,480.00 irk tm ee folate \m 1 ‘This is an Used optical tube in very good Cee Versatile optical design ee Os ied aa) ee arated Cee es CO aaled sen a ee Dees Pe Compact design for easy transport ec eee eed pI) Sees AN $1,199.00 eee $949.00 Pe eU Rae ~— Ce eee ee een EE ncludes an internal modified Coronado Sol Ranger Sun Finder for easy centering err nee ree Dee eee es Narrow passband wiath provides maximum contrast and visibility of active solar regions “Achromatic doublet objective lens is fully muti coated. eee te al ee" $599.00ai errr eta eh LAER Ue RLY {USB3.0 (3 Gbps) Liquid and/or Air Cooled Peer ne) eee es Reaches operating temperatures in 5 minutes ero er aos The KL4040 scientific CMOS camera has the same pixel size and imaging Fd eC ee ee Ree edn ee CCE em cog ‘cooled CMOS cameras provides ultra-high sensitivity, extremely low noise, See ee eee ea eee ‘The KL4040 is ideal for low-light applications including Confocal Micros- ‘copy, Light Sheet Microscopy, TIRF and GFP, Orbital Debris Detection, ‘Super-Resolution Microscopy. ‘Supplied with three operational modes: High Gain, Low Gain, and High Dynamic Range. Depending on which made you choose to use your can. Berea ae een a eta Ce a ae eee ees Dynamic range for in both long exposure and video modes $16,660.00Renee Cac Se) Sale price $199.00 Sale 06 08 88 REVIEWS POS ee ied Sa) Sale price $199.00 Sale 00.88 aan Uae d $99:98- Ea b 0 0.0 04 Eran}ee ee Uttralight, 5kg include all the package. aU a ELC CHECK OUT Adjustable Slider Length, 55cm, 140cm and 165cm. High Strength Carbon Fiber USING CODE kee eat a Tren ee aE ee ee A A Ave Rec ie nner ener RO Ce OP BED 8 O20 d For Video, Moving speed can be preset on the controller See endBU BAND.& QUAD- aie e tt ts pete eeu! MG albus celle cere ALTAIR 60 EDF cals) _ ATMOSPHERIC DISPERSION CORRECTOR‘The Altair Astro 115mm F7 EDT APO is a highly specified tiplet APO refractor which significantly outperforms 4" refiactors both in resolution and light grasp, whilst still Pernt es eee The Altair 115mm F7 EDT is the ideal multi-purpose telescope platform, suited for the amateur astronomer interested in both visual and imaging use, and offering excellent performance in both areas. It offers a wide-field or a high power view and is therefore more versatile than a Cassegrain type reflector, enabling high contrast views of planets and wide field deep sky objects. 2019 Production Run now in stock, with 100mm removable binoviewer extension. A £1699.00 eee CR Maen Tne cterntnt se Teel crm DES ODIO LO)EFagle3 One Year On by Tim Cowell | have made some terrible purchasing decisions during my time enjoying this wonderful pursuit. A very expensive and completely unsuitable telescope, a camera that has more in ‘common with an ice maker and a wobbly mount made from cheese. As | gained experience, | found most of my issues were technical, Some say that this is all part of the learning, curve and that astrophotography isa skill earned the hard ay. Why should it be like this in modern times where all the bumps and dips could have been ironed smooth a decade ago? The Eagle3 from PrimaLuce Lab has the appeal of a shiny and interesting looking door stop but after afew imaging sessions a trusted friend and owner told me it, elevates itself from ‘nice to have' to ‘can't live without. Might this be the answer to my problems? Shortly before the Eagle3 landed on my desk | had a great astro imaging session running in almost perfect conditions and | was having fun. My little William Optics Star 71. was making easy work of the Heart Nebula and the sub frames were mounting up. Guiding had behaved itself as the target climbed towards the zenith. Even the dew had become conspicuous by its absence and the rig remained bone dry, lit partially by the dim, red glow of my laptop's night-friendly setting. Out of Wi-Fi range and with no suitably long cable, | retreated indoors to use the loo and make a coffee. Happily replenished and with a sense of ‘arrival with my Mpicoftheday almost in the bag, it won't take much imagination to feel my anguish, as in those few moments the laptop had been cable-snagged and was now being, dangled and mangled, These lovely Eagle computers had caught my eye from their launch marketing and appeared to be financially out of reach at first glance. Flipping between ads for a replacement laptop of suitable specification and Facebook, where | had posted my almost award winning Heart rendering, a repetitive thought drove me to search for Eagle3 and in the UK www.365Astron: omy.com looked to be the place to go. The decision was easy to make, Take the cost of a dedicated astro laptop (accidents happen, | wouldn't now share work and play on one machine),then add a useful dew system and power distribution and suddenly the investment in Eagle3 makes perfect sense. Order placed, item unboxed, | wanted very much to settle into this long term, red box relationship and recoup some imaging, hours, Being very simple to incorporate into your telescope rig, by way of a plethora of fixing holes on the top and bottom of its strong metal case, Eagle3 becomes your new best friend. Bolted on, you have no fears of wobble or slip and you can set-to with crafting your cabling, This is such a joy for cable management types because all of your connectivity is sensibly laid out, leaving you one power lead to manage externally. All your major power cables utilise solid screw in connections for total security. The 12v DC cable is of heavy duty quality as it must manage all of the power requirements. Naturally, there is a proper mains transformer available should you require it, USB3 ports, 2 each side, and 4 more USB2 ports are super-generous on a unit that has sophisticated Wi-Fi in-built. ‘There are four voltage controllable dew ports too. At no time during the season have I had any power or connectivity issues the Eagle3. On the odd occasion when my batteries have run down the system sensibly cuts off so there is no danger of a runaway mount. Settling in to a typical imaging session is a stress-free affair. ‘The Eagle swiftly boots from its SSD (the customised Windows 10 Pro operating system has been cleansed of bloatware and runs quickly and stably) | use Microsoft Remote Desktop over Wi-Fi to the Eagle by way of a standard home type router and am presented, by default with the Eagle Manager control panel. Ths facility gives a thorough view of the Eagle3 systems and allows setting of values and toggles power to your equipment and dew heaters. You can set a profile for start-up behaviour, so have all of my equipment for the dual William Optics 25103 and ZWO ASI 1600 MMC Pros defined and ready. Running two cameras of the same make and model can cause alittle confusion at first, but with a little care and logical pro gression Sequence Generator Pro seems to cope. The Eagle3, however, breezes through this task faultlessly. The processing payload consists of Polemaster (which | leave open as it makes for a fascinating wide camera for live view), SGPro in 2 instances, PHD2, EQASCOM via Cartes Du Ciel. Not a huge burden by PC standards of course but after living with Eagle3 for a few months you notice it doesn't crash or lock up. IFit has a quirk itis probably that of dogged reliability. It has become my firm friend, | trust it with my precious work and it never fails. | love being in my warm corner operating the rig from the computer screen.The Eagle has become my space ship as it takes me from target to target. | click and the response is immediate. For many years | had to Nanny my rigs, standing over them, freezing cold and tired, often wishing | was elsewhere for a while to thaw out. It seemed that every time | turned my back another gremlin would emerge to upset my fragile apple-cart. This equipment confidence transformed my experience so much that | committed to a twin telescope arrangement. | would not have dared to begin this venture without my. Eagle3. The physical part, the metalwork and mount are easy tasks compared to hooking up all the kit and running it for a night. Over the year | have been able to refine the obvious things like balance and polar alignment and the trickier art of cable tidying. have no doubt that this ship-shapeapproach is due to the Eagle3 because my portable, traditional rig, is a mess of wires that love to jangle and upset my guiding, ‘Would | buy another? Yes. If | started again | would have bought a better mount and an Eagle3 to use with my old DSLR before ever considering a bazooka beyond my abilities. Just thinking about that has me itching to get imaging tonight. ‘What would appear to be quite a complex concoction of pipe and steel, wires and chips is reduced to a control panel, a sim plified interface that allows me to travel serenely across space. | don't think you can put a price on pleasure and with a deep sky picture building up, sub by sub, with no hitches and zlitches, that is a very happy time for me. Thereis nothing quite like it on the market and looking today I see Cyber Christmas Eagle3 deals that offer more storage and faster pro- cessing for less money. I'm in! My new Eagle3 may not fly me above those pesky clouds but | know we won't crash. oe aWhether you choose to explore stunning wide field vistas or focus on ‘Arp’s peculiar galaxies; no matter what your level of expertise, we'll have the camera for you. you're looking for dedicated video astronomy then th era wil nds. The high amera you have in mind, for you. Or maybe you would prefer the Atk One, or our exceptional large format cameras that will deiver funning full frame results Explore our range of quality cameras made by astrophotographers for astrophotographers. See our website for more details, invaluable advice, tips and tricks, and much more. FOR EVERY ASTROPHOTOGRAPHER ATIK Seem cameras fovea See the full Atik range at www.atik-cameras.comHAP\.D2 SE NCU Ua a EVN epee Ee ee eek one lot Pe aCe eae a ecu se ee er ea eed SCOR ea a Ecco our Facebook, Instagram and the AAPOD2.com erent hy Ac ee eat eD Detar eee RCo eee enn Ne Ae book.com/groups/aapod2) with a short description SE oe ee aia tat Tae RC eA oun not ee ee Reece aCe Reel ton anne Rene cued Chee aaa ee rd a government funded observatory. OA Ste Cte cient kc Conv sey. eV eae ete RNS ae) Meee ecco cemetery AAPODx2, APOD.nasa.gov and is a private venture Dene UCN SE a ee tec ed eee Eu Rae ea Pounce eer ire eect Poem cries ied ATER Rs rac Ral ea ae Runes Loreto (ere Hy eed pee cena Sean ead Etec eg Location CoCiad Oe ee nmi Tae acee RCo ey eer urlce ae Re Meteo R oa segs Good luck to all!Z< SPACECATS1 ~—REDCAT 51 ‘7 \MOPTICS.COM meee ass nun Oy. Ninel Revolutionary Portable ApochromaticIBORG H 107FL F3.9ED Veil : taken with 107FL F3.9ED, SONY A7 & IDAS NB2 & NB3 filters Features ; * 107mm & 90mm Canon Fluorite * BORG-proprietary 6-element optical systems * ESATTO 3” robotic microfocuser* as standard * Large image format - 55mm * PrimaLuceLab-madeNew Cassegrain 8” @ Ager Jose Carballada astro.carballed: | finish the temporary set up with the new classical Casseg- rain 8” telescope in tandem with my Ritchey Chrétien 10". This new tube will provide options for planetary, lunar and long focal range astrophotography. Originally this tube was made at f12 (2436mm) but in my case it’s set at £17 (3500mm), | will use a QHY-III 174 monochrome camera (Sony IMX-174 sensor). It is a 1/1.2 inch CMOS sensor with 2.3 megapixels (19201200) with 5.86ym pixel size with global shutter. The ‘maximum capturing speed is 138 frames per second. ‘The Field Of View of this camera and telescope (in red) ‘compared with the RC1O and the AS1600 (in yellow)It’s only 11.5 x 7.2 arcminutes. Here the initial balance Temporally | use a Sesto Senso focuser with the original focuser. New Moonlite CSL 2.5" is on the way. Everything is aligned with a JTD Dual Rig Telescope Alignment Saddle from First Light Optics and the idea is to use the RC10 as guiderscope and finderscope. and one of the first movements with the Mesu 200 mount and very close to 40kg of weight. am waiting some nice weather to test the flexure and i guiding of the group. CssMy first telescope for astrophotography - After some time taking pictures with the material | had, | realized that | had reached a “ceiling” with the telephoto lens, | could not get clear photos and focusing well was complicated, so would have no choice but to get a better telephoto lens for astrophotography if | wanted to overcome that ceiling. After analysing many telephoto lenses, | realized that any focal telephoto lens greater than 300mm with a decent quality doubles its price and in the brightest ones the price skyrock ‘eted exponentially, so looking for a decent lens with acceptable characteristics, | realized that | was going to have to pay a minimum of 6006. Skywatcher 72ED With that bleak panorama before me, | started looking for tele scopes, which are usually cheaper and are designed specifically for astronomy and astrophotography. Not all telescopes works the same. There are telescopes of, many types and for all kinds of needs, but the most similar to a camera lens is the refractor telescope. ‘The Skywatcher 72ED had been told that there was a small and very transportable refractor telescope with an interesting focal length. That, telescope also had a much lower cost than any moderately acceptable telephoto lens, so after seeing several photos taken with the telescope at Astrobin, | decided to order it,The telescope is the Skywatcher 72ED with a weight of less than 2kg, 420mm focal length and 72mm apperture. A focal ratio of f5.8, which is not bad given it’s magnifying capabilities. ‘The 72ED is an apochromatic refractor. This means that it hardly shows chromatic aberrations when the light passes through the lenses. Achromatic telescopes do have a greater chromatic aberration, This telescope has allowed me to take very good photos (compared to what | was doing so far), although there will always be room for improvernent. The differences with a camera lens are quite few. Refractors works as a prime lens, but thet are not being prepared specifi- cally for cameras, so you have to take into account some issues that | address in the following lines. Place the camera To place the camera in a telescope you need an additional accessory or several, depending on our configuration. In my case, with a DSLR, | only needed a T2-£0S adapter ring that ‘would allow the camera to be connected to any telescope with a2 thread. ‘The problem is that the 72ED does not come with any T2 thread, but an opening to introduce 2-inch eyepieces, so | designed a plastic part | could screw the T2 ring to and use it to introduce it as an eyepiece in The telescope itself ‘With that part | was ready to make my first session with the 72ED, so | adjusted the pieces and went to take pictures. Focus ‘The focus on telescopes is done through the use of a wheel called focuser. In the case of 72ED this focuser is a dual speed focuser. It has two wheels, one for the initial adjustment, and the other for fine adjustment, which allows focusing very precisely, However, the focus on astrophotography must be done to infinity, and at night, you need to focus the stars so that they look as punctual as possible. It is a complicated process sometimes and not always gives the best results. There is a tool that really helps to get focus and achieve the best possible approach with the telescope. This accessory is, called Bahtinov mask.The principle of operation of the Bahtinov mask is based on the principle of diffraction of light, which, when passing through the mask grid, generates a pattern in the stars with three lines. By aligning that lines so that they intersect at a single point, the telescope is fully focused. ‘We can see the characteristic pattern of the Bahtinov mask in the following image of the star Deneb taken by Victor R. Ruiz. Once the telescope was focused, | took a few shots of M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy. Optical quality Telescopes are not camera lenses, and are usually prepared for using them with eyepieces. Therefore, it does not matter that the image does not focus on a flat surface like a camera's sensor, and many of them focus on curved surfaces. The fact that the focusing surface is not flat implies that the image will have a characteristic blur at the edges, especially in large camera sensors such as those in a reflex camera. In the next Pinwheel Galaxy photo you can notice this defor mation on the stars at the edges of the image that resembled the effect of the Star Wars light speed travel ‘To correct that it is necessary to use a special lens in front of the camera called field flattener. What this lens does is deform the projected image to correct the surface on which the image is focused and make it flat again. ‘They are usually quite expensive accessories that can even cost almost like the telescope itself, although in my case | found a cheaper brand: OVL and in the end the price of the entire optical train was less than 400€. Another important issue is that even being an APO or approchromatic telescope, it has a slight chromatic aberration that generates almost imperceptible blue halos in the stars, but overall, it behaves much more than satisfactorily Collimation problem In my case it was a punctual problem, but my 72ED came with a factory defect and the focuser block was slightly deviatedfrom the rest of the optical train This caused the photos to have comma problems in two or three of the corners depending on the angle of rotation of the camera. Fortunately, and after getting a Cheshire collimation eyepiece, | was able to readjust it with the three screws that hold it to the ‘main tube. After the adjustment the telescope was completely aligned and the coma has disappeared, but | spent several months testing, to diagnose the problem until | found the solution. Photos taken with the 72ED Below you can see some of the photos | have taken with this, telescope. Conclusions ‘The 72ED isa telescope with a focal length that makes it necessary to use a mount with tracking. Due to it's small weigh and size it is ideal for use in compact mounts such as AZ-GTi or Star Adventurer. On the other hand, its focal length is ideal for working with cameras with APS-C or Full Frame sensors. You get very good framing of the great majority of the nebulas and objects of deep sky. For galaxies (except the Andromeda galaxy) more: focal length would be needed, but decent images of some of the galaxies in the messier catalog can be obtained, Its focal ratio is not excessively high. Normally any 300mm telephoto lens of a similar price has the same focal ratio, and its optical quality is usually much lower. The inclusion of a double speed focuser, as well as the low dis- persion optical elements, allow to obtain very sharp images with very few chromatic aberrations. Given that the telescope has a much cheaper cost than a lens, and that itis avery compact telescope, | am very happy with the results I get with it. I would recommend it for anyone looking fora lightweight and portable device with more than acceptable optical quality. Ifyou have any questions or have information that you want to share, contact me through my twitter account.eeu cg oem oe ae acho Scud ee ee ce cna requiring no power to remain in place! This results - Avoidance of gear and motor shake that might otherwise affect image clarity during photo exposure. Le aed oe shots between charges. Ren ene errno ae ema Coreg ‘All Camera & Phones Easily as simple as install ball head to your tripod, "Just pointing the star pointer’s beam to the Polaris, and then you are ready to shoot. Asa Star Tracker, it can support all cameras. RSC mond . Tired of the trails and Noise? Pra AE eed Emm. Star Trackers what you are looking for, ccm tenn Tate od Ree eet teJust One Cable for Time-lapse This cable is used for the time-lapse purpose. For star tracker, this cable is not needed, oe See eee eet ccna ns nice ecard De ae ee ag ere er once tet ere er ces locations in order to find the best perspective. ‘Small in size and weight - these were the essential Bt eee eco Pee eet) ee ae eed Pera mee cae ers eee ee % OyEXOS-2 mount with PMC-8 control from Explore Scientific on special offer! In 2018 the American company Explore Scientific brought a revolutionary control system onto the market, the PMC-8. PMC stands for Precision Motion Controller, since this control system guarantees precise control of the astronomi- cal mount. ‘We are offering you the EXOS-2 with PMC-8 control mount at the special price of EUR 699, You save EUR 100 compared to the normal price! ‘The EXOS-2 is a well-proven mount for medium-sized tele~ scopes from Bresser, It is suitable for astrophotography with long exposure times and is ideal for Newtonian telescopes up to 8". For example, for astrophotography the Skywatcher N. 150/750 telescope would be very well suited. The GoTo control consists of a robust control box with WLAN. All the necessary interfaces are provided, for example a ST-4 compatible autoguider port. A PC or tablet can be wen ater used to operate the control system over the WLAN. The mobile device used should have a screen size of at least 7.1”, ‘The ExploreStars app has been developed specifically and ae offers a well-accomplished graphical user interface: helpful for beginners and very convenient for the experienced wa 0 observer! ‘You can find out more about this mount here at Astroshop. The offer is valid only until 15 January 2020, Order now! Astro R10] gee erPairing a Camera and Lens for Astrophotography. eee ah na een er ag CEE Astrophotography is a fairly complicated hobby, and there's a lot to learn! One of the most important aspects of astropho- tography is picking the correct camera for your lens or telescope (and vice versa!) For all my fellow photographers out there, we are very familiar with focal length, and how that affects our images. As you'll learn though, focal length is just the tip of the iceberg! In this article | will break down all the major points, and simplify things as much as possible. Focal Length Let's start off with focal length, since this is the easiest to understand. More focal length means more zoom, and any objects you are photographing will appear larger in the frame, This can be hard to quantify when it comes to deep space astrophotography though. Thankfully, I've got plenty of sample images to give you an idea of how the different objects will look. For the rest of this section, I will be focusing on focal lengths with a Full Frame camera, like the Canon 5D or Nikon D850. Welll cover crop-sensors, and how they affect focal length, later on. Sin / Telescope i Ce nee aN Se Now that I've photographed most of the large objects in the night sky with a variety of lenses, Ive got a pretty good idea Cf how the focal length will change the composition. | recommend using at least 250mm. At this focal length, even the largest objects (lke the Andromeda Galaxy) will be fairly small in the frame. You will need to crop in quite consider- ably to geta great photo. If you have a lower-resolution sensor, this crop will cause problems with the image quality. However, if you've got a high-res sensor lke the Nikon D850, you can crop in quite close and still retain a lot of detail | personally like shooting between 400mm - 600mm for most of the deep space objects. Let's be clear, when I say deep space objects I'm referring to the brightest and largest objects in the night sky. For a ful list, check out my Deep Space Course, which focuses on 12 different objects. Once you get to 400mm, you should be able to fill most of the frame with these objects. As the zoom in further, and the objects get larger in the frame, you will be able to pull out, more details. However, there is a drawback to consider:This comparison shows the Androm photo was taken at 500mm and edited in Photoshop. | then soe ngths. The Andromeda Galaxy The more zoom you have, the more accurate your tracking has to be, Instead of shooting 2 minute exposures at 250mm, you will be lucky to get sharp stars at 20 seconds when shooting 400mm, OF course, this lagely depends on your polar alignment accuracy, balance, the tracker itself, and whether you have an auto-guider, Before | purchased an auto-guider, | was limited to 30 second exposures with my Tamron 150-600mm lens. This was never enough time to capture the light that | needed. Even if | took 100 photos and stacked them, | would still have problems baked into the final image. Most notably, there's an ugly purple glow at the bottom of my photos. Once | started using an auto-guider though, | could easily shoot 2+ minutes also one of the largest obje xy at 150mm, 200mm, 300mm, 400mm, 500mm, and 600mm. The original it to show the galaxy would look at these various focal in the night sky. with sharp stars! For more information on auto-guider, check out my article here, Telescopius As | was doing research for this article, | learned about a great resource - telescopius.com This website allows you to input your focal length and sensor size to get an accurate view of how large the objects will appear. Now you can, quickly see how an object will look with any give combina tion of camera and lens! Once you get to the Telescope Simulator page you can select any object you plan on photographing. You'll want to make sure you input your focal length and sensor size in the appro-riate boxes. If you're not sure what your sensor size is, this website should tell you. A Full Frame sensor is usually 36mm, x 24mm. This is a great way to try different combinations and determine what focal length or sensor size you should consider buying. Teleconverters, Ifyou have a 70-200mm lens, you may also have a telecon: verter laying around. These usually come in 2 versions - 1.4x and 2x. The 1.4x teleconverter will give you a small boost in focal length, but you will also lose a stop of light. That 70-200min £/2.8 lens will now act like a 98-280mm £/4 lens, That's not much more zoom, and you're capturing half the amount of light you were at f/2.8! The 2x teleconverter will go much further, but also cost you 2 stops of light (that’s 4 times less light)! That lens will now act like a 140mm - 400mm /5.6 lens. That might sound pretty good, essentially equivalent to a 100-400mm £/5.6 lens. However, telecon- verts aren't designed for astrophotography. Therefore, you may see severe star distortion and chromatic aberration, among ather problems. if you have one, feel free to try it, but | would not recommend buying one specifically for astro. Just to recap, | generally recommend 400mm - 600mm for most of the objects that we can capture with a DSLR. If you only have a 70-200mm lens, most of the objects will appear quite small in the frame, This causes them to lose that ‘wow’ factor. If your budget allows it, I'd recommend getting something like a 100-400mm or 150-600mm lens. This photo was taken with a stock Nikon D750, William Optics Space Cat, SkyGuider Pro, and ZWOASIAir. This combo is very portable and lightweight, and provides excellent results! The only downside is the relatively short 250nnm focal length of the Space Cat, but it worked nicely for this compositionCamera Lens or Telescope? ‘Almost all of my deep space images have been taken with, ‘camera lenses, usually the Tamron 70-200mrm G2 or the Tamron 150-600mm. These both do a surprisingly good job! ‘The best part is the versatility. | can use these lenses for, landscapes and wildlife photography during the day, and astro at night! Therefore, | highly recommend starting off with whatever camera lenses you currently have, There are a few things you need to watch out for though. Since camera lenses aren't specifically designed for astropho- tography, they may exhibit some problems. The two big ones are chromatic aberration and coma. Chromatic Aberration is 2 colored line around high-contrast areas ike stars. This may manifest as a bright blue or purple glow around your stars. In ‘some cases the chromatic aberration is so bad, it completely ruins a photo. Telescopes can also have this problem, espe- cially cheaper ones. One trick to reducing chromatic aberra- tion is "stopping down the lens". Rather than shooting wide ‘open, at £/2.8 for example, you can intentionally use a smaller aperture like £/4, You'll capture less light, but the stars may appear sharper and have less chromatic aberration. Itis possible to remove chromatic aberration in post-processing, but the results will vary from lens to lens. ‘Coma is a unique star distortion that will change for every lens. I recommend reading this thorough analysis of the various types of coma. I honestly don't see too much coma with most telephoto lenses, this is mainly a problem with wide angle lenses between 35mm - 85mm. Coma can usually be corrected fairly easily by stopping the lens down, For example, my Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART lens has terrible coma at f/1.4. The stars look like birds! The only way to fix this problem is by using f/4. At that point the stars are finally sharp. However, f/4 captures & times less light than f/1.4! To be honest, | don't really have much experience with tele- scopes. The only telescope | actually own is the 250mm ‘William Optics Space Cat. It does a nice job, but it's not exactly a big fancy telescope. Therefore, | can’t give any real recommendations. | would recommend checking YouTube and the CloudyNights forum before you buy any telescope. Both platforms are great repositories of sample images and user feedback. I'd recommend reading this article for more information on the different types of telescopes. | have much more experience with camera lenses, but there are still too many to choose from! My general advice would be to get a 100-400mm lens, oF a 150-600mm lens. These will both provide enough zoom to capture incredible photos! | really ike the Tamron brand of lenses, they've come a long way in the past few years. Their latest lenses rival the first party options from Canon, Sony, and Nikon, fora fraction of the price! IF you are thinking of buying a new lens or telescope, there are two main factors to consider - Aperture and Focal Length. I'd recommend at least 400mm for the focal length. This should be enough zoom for most of the big nebulae and galaxies in the night sky. | would not go higher than 800mm though. This will be overkill unless you have a high-end "Go-To" telescope mount. Just keep in mind that the size, weight, and price of a lens / telescope will increase along with the focal length and maximum aperture. My final recommendation really depends on your current setup. If you're ke me, and have a DSLR, telephoto lenses, tripod, and a star tracker, then there's really no need for a telescope. You might as well stick with your current lenses, or consider buying a new telephoto lens. You can use it for both astrophotography and your “normal stuf portraits, wildlife, landscapes, etc... | would only recommend buying a telescope if you are also considering a dedicated astropho- tography camera. In that case, you'll probably want to get a higher end mount too,This photo was taken with the Wiliam Optics Space Cat telescope. Since it was only 250mm, the Andromeda Galaxy was fairly small in the frame and | had to crop quite a bit to get this final image. I've gotten better photos of this galaxy using a standard camera lens like the Tamron 150-600mm. In most cases, telescopes aren't magically better than a telephoto lens. They may be cheaper and lighter though! Aperture and Shutter Speed The two most important camera settings for astrophotogra- phy are aperture and shutter speed. The shutter speed depends on a few factors - your polar alignment accuracy, whether or not you are using an auto-guider, the build quality of your star tracker, your focal length, anc how well balanced your setups. If you have everything perfect, you could probably shoot up to 10 minute exposures at any given focal length. Realistically though, I'm happy if I can get 3 or 4 minute exposures at 400mm+. A longer shutter speed is one of the best ways to get higher quality images. As the total exposure time increases, your camera's "white noise" will become less apparent. This white noise is visible in your photos when you don't capture enough light. (On my D750 it mainly manife 'sas a purple glow at the bottom of the photo. This was a nightmare to deal with, until | began using a star tracker and taking longer exposures. Once | was able to shoot 3+ minute e: s, the prol apletely red! Taking longer photos is one way to reduce the your camera's "white noise", and increase the detail in your photos. ‘Awider aperture is another way to capture more light, and reduce any visible "white noise” generated by your camera. | use a Tamron 150-600mm f/5 - f/6.3 lens for most of my deep space astrophotography. As | zoom in, the lens. captures less light. At 600mm | only have an f/6.3 aperture, which does not transmit much light at all. Therefore, | need to shoot longer exposures to overcome the small amount oflight transmission. There are some lenses that have a fixed aperture, ike the Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6. A fixed aperture passes the same amount of light through regardless of the focal length. You can also get a telescope or lens that is a fixed focal length, like a 500mm /4. The downside of a fixed focal length is that you cannot zoom in or out. If you're trying to find a distant galaxy or nebula without a Go-To tracker, a fixed focal length can make your life much more difficult. ‘When I'm trying to find my objects at night, | start at 250mm and take test photos until I see the object. Then | can zoom in, focus, and recenter the object again. Azoom lens is a nice thing to have at night! Meanwhile, all telescopes will be fixed focal length. Let's do some quick math problems. As a reminder, here are the main aperture values. As we go up or down the list, we either double or halve the amount of light. So #/4 will ‘transmit twice as much light as #/5.6, Let's say my Tamron lens is at 400mm with an aperture of £/5.6. If | were to go ‘out and purchase a 400mm f/4 lens, | have now doubled the amount of light that will pass through to my camera, That's pretty good! Instead of having to shoot a 4 minute long exposure, | can get the same results in just 2 minutes now! Instead of spending 2 hours capturing photos at /5.6, | can spend 1 hour capturing photos at £/4 and get the same ‘amount of light. If I were to go even further, and buy an f/2.8 lens, | would capture up to 4 times more light than the f/5.6 lens! That means even shorter exposures, and less time to spend on an object. So you might be thinking "Great! ['Iljust run out and buy a 400mm f/2.8 lens then!" Not so fast. First, those lenses usually cost more than a car! Second, they are usually very large and heavy. If you have a SkyGuider Pro or Star Adven: turer, it wll not be able to handle such a big lens. Ifyou have a legit telescope mount, then you could probably make this work. Although, you may be better off investing in a telescope rather than a big 500mm f/4 lens. They are usually much lighter and cheaper. This also brings me to a small point about Fresnel lenses. This is a special type of glass, like you'd see on a lighthouse. It is much lighter than normal glass, and can drastically reduce the size and weight of a lens. However, due to the lass design, it deforms the stars. You wouldn't want to use a Fresnel lens for any astrophotography. Here's an example of 1 fresnel lens - the Nikon 300mm (/4 PF. Recap For most people, the best thing you can do is take longer exposures. This will have a big impact on your overall image quality, without needing to spend thousands of dollars on a new lens or telescope. Although, you may need to get an auto-guider to make sure your star tracker is accurate enough to shoot 30+ second exposures at 400mm+. If you've got, the cash though, it might be a good idea to invest in a faster lens. Ifyou can get down to f/4, that would be great! | ‘wouldn't stress about getting down to f/2.8. Just remember, the lens can't be too large and heavy! | wouldn't geta lens heavier than 6 Ibs. The SkyGuider Pro and Star Adventurer can handle "11 Ib payloads’, but | wouldn't push it that far. At most, | would put about 8 or 9 Ibs on them, That includes your camera body, L-Bracket, lens, auto-guider, guide-scope, and whatever else you may have attached. If you have a legit telescope mount that can handle a large payload, then go for, it! If your mount can handle 2OIbs+ you might as well invest ina quality lens or telescope. Crop Sensors ‘There tends to be some confusion around crop-sensor cameras, especially when it comes to focal length and astro: photography. Let's start off with the basics first. A crop sensor Nikon DSLR, like the D3500 or D5600, will magnify the image by a factor of 1.5%.‘Therefore, your 70-200mm lens will have a Field of View (FOV) similar to a 105mm - 300mm on a Full Frame camera. For Canon shooters, you'll need to multiply your focal length by 1.6x. Therefore, that same lens will look like 112mm, 320mm. As you can imagine, this magnification drastically increases with higher focal lengths. A Tamron 150-600mm lens on a Nikon D5600 will look like a 225mm - 900mm lens. The outer image was taken with a 14mm lens on my full frame Nikon D750. | had a very wide Field of View that allowed me to capture a nice foreground and sky. The inner image was teken with the same 14mm lens, but placed on a crop-sensor camera. Since the crop sensor magnified the image by a factor of 1.5x, | have a narrower Field of View ‘equivalent to about 2imm. This is not ideal for Milky Way photography, where we want a wider Field of View. While crop-sensors aren't ideal for Milky Way photography, they are a good idea for deep space astrophotography! If you Use a crop-sensor camera with a telephoto lens, you will automatically crop out most of the vignette and star distor- tion. That's because of the image circle. Full Frame lenses produce a large image circle that's designed to cover a full frame sensor. However, your crop sensor is much smaller, so it only sees the center of the image circle. The center usually has the sharpest stars, and minimal vignette. Nook 2 photos, one with a Nikon D5600 and one with a ‘Nikon D750. Both were taken with the Wiliam Optics Space Cat telescope (250mm). As you can see, the D5600 image only fils the center of the frame, Therefore, all of the Vignette and star distortion in the comers is automatically cropped out. I don't have to worry about taking flat frames now! Plus, the adettional magnification of the D5600 will allow me fo get closer to the Orion Nebula, Next, let's talk about u 1g DX mode on a Full Frame camera, This is a setting you can enable in your camera's menu, Once you turn on DX mode, the camera will automatically crop the photo by a factor of 1.5x. To be clear, this is not the same as actually using a crop-sensor camera. This might make more sense if you look back at the images above. Both the Full Frame D750 and Crop-Sensor D560 have 24 megapixel sensors. If turn on DX mode on my D750, | will now capture what you see in the center photo. However, | will have lost quite a bit of resolution due to the crop. Meanwhile, the D5600 is starting off "zoomed in’, and it has the full 24 megapixel resolution, Since the starting point is already zoomed in, | can crop even further and retain more detail. Hopefully that makes sense! ‘The DX mode automatically crops your photo after you take it. You could do the exact same thing in post-processing. In fact, that's what | recommend! Why crop in-camera and lose that data forever when you could just crop later on? If you turn on DX mode in-camera you will be reducing the resolu- tion of the file, and limiting yourself in the future.I decided to use a Nikon D5600 (crop-sonsor) during the Lunar Eclipse, rather than my Nikon D750, The 1.5x crop factor caused the moon to fill more of the frame, and create an impressive image. Alllof the deep space photos you've seen on my website were taken with a Full Frame camera. If | had an unlimited budget, | would likely buy a crop-sensor camera too. The crop-sensor would allow me to get a bit more detail out of the smaller objects in the night sky with any given lens. To be honest though, the results would be marginally better in most cases. If you are ready to take things to the next level, you'd be better off investing in a dedicated astrophotography camera, I'll cover this further down in the article. Pixel Size Ifyou've made it this far wi thout getting completely lost, con: gratulations! Now we're going to get a bit more technical Pixel Size is one of the most important factors to consider when buying a camera for astrophotography. ‘The pixel size of your camera and focal length of your lens/telescope are the two main factors that determine how large an object will appear. I recommend using this website to find your own camera's pixel size. The main field we are interested in is "Pixel Pitch’, which tells us how large the pixels are, As you can see here, my Nikon D750 has a pixel size of 5.95 micrometers. That's pretty big for a DSLR! Meanwhile, the Nikon D5600 has a pixel size of 3.89 micrometers, Ifyou compare the crop-sensor Nikon 05600 with the full-frame Nikon D750, you'll notice a few important differ- ences. The Nikon D750 has a much larger sensor, this extra surface area translates into more light gathering capabilities, In other words, the full-frame camera is able to capture more light and perform better in low-light scenarios. On the other hand, the crop-sensor camera has smaller pixels and a higherIf you are purchasing a dedicated astrophotography camera, like the ZWO ASI 1600mm, you should be able to find the pixel size on the main spec sheet. In this case, the ASI 1600mm Pro has a pixel size of 3.8um. I also want to point cout that the ZWO ASI 1600MM has a "micro four thirds sized sensor. This is even smaller than APS-C, A4/3" sensor will magnify the image by a factor of 2. So a 300mm lens placed on a ZWO 1600MM would have a similar field of view asa 600mm lens on my full frame D750. Larger pixels will be able to capture and store more light than smaller pixels. Larger sensors also have more surface area, and can capture more total light. This is why | highly recommend a good full-frame camera and wide angle lens for Milky Way photography. You get the best of bath worlds - a wider field of view and less grain! Meare Crop Sensor cameras are generally better for deep space astrophotography. They usually have smaller pixels and a 4.5x crop factor, which will make the objects appear larger in the frame. This should allow you to pull out more fine details. The only downside is that the smaller pixels will capture less light, and the smaller sensor will have less total surface area to capture light. That means you need to shoot. longer exposures, and more of them, to overcome the camera's inherent "white noise” Hopefully this concept makes sense now. Milky Way pho- tographers will definitely want a full-frame camera with large pixels, paired with a sharp wide-angle lens. This will provide excellent results when using a star tracker al my recom: mended shooting techniques. If you would rather focus on deep space astrophotography though, then a crop-sensor camera or even a dedicated astro camera may be a better choice. You'll need to take more photos, and have better tracking and guiding, but you should be able to pull out more detail‘Arc Seconds Per Pixel Now let's try my Tamron 70-200mm and Nikon D750. It’s finally time to put everything together, and figure out (5.95um / 200mm) x 206 = 6.1 arc seconds per pixel how your camera will perform with any given telescope or lens. We'll be using a fairly simple equation, but you'll need, to know your camera's pixel size in micrometers and the focal length of your lens or telescope. If you forget what your Okay great, we know the “arc-seconds per pixel’, but what camera's pixel size is, visit this website and find your camera. _ does that actually mean? Very simply, you want the number The main field we will be using is "Pixel Pitch’. to be between 1 - 2. The higher the number, the worse your images will look. The stars will appear blocky and many (Pixel size / focal length) x 206 = arc-seconds per pixel objects will look small in the frame. This corresponds quite well with focal length. As | mentioned, | like using 400mm - Let's start with my Nikon D750 and Tamron 150-600mm, 600mm on my Nikon D750. This gives me an “arc seconds which is one of my favorite combos. per pixel” rating between 2 and 3. If were to use less focal length, from 200mm - 300mm, | just wouldn't have enough {5.95um / 600mm) x 206 = 2 arc seconds per pixel zoom to create a "wow!" image. 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This table was taken from Atik, an astrophotography camera manufacturer. This is a very easy way to figure out what focal length will work best for your camera. If you don't know your camera's pixal size is in um, click here to find out The field you are interested in is "Pixel Pitch". My Nikon D750 has .95um, so my recommended focal length is around 600m. If 1 was using @ D5600 though, which is 3.89um, I would only need @ 400mm lens for ideal results. Smaller pixels require less zoom, while larger pixels require more zoom!IF you've ever used PHD2 or the ZWO ASIAir, you may have seen the term ‘arc seconds’, in regards to the guiding accuracy. Arc Seconds are a measurement, and are routinely used in astrophotography to measure accuracy. For example, in this PHD2 screenshot you can see a graph with a blue line. ‘The graph has +2", +4" and 48" above the centerline, and -2",-4", and -8" below the centerline. These are arc seconds. If Lwas using my 150-600mm and Nikon D750, my Arc Seconds Per Pixel rating is 2 (if 'm at 600mm). Therefore, 'd want the blue line to stay between +-2", Ifthe line starts going +-4" or higher, my stars will ikely lose their sharpness. IF L.was using my 70-200mm though, | could be between +-6 in most cases, and not notice any problems with the stars. Click here to see the full size image. If you look closely, you'll see 2", 4" and 6" above the center graph line, and -2", -4", and -6" below the center line. The blue line represents our tracking accuracy. In this case, the blue line stays between +-2" in most cases. If] was using my Tamron 150-600mm at 600mm, I need to make sure the blue line stays betwoon +2". IF! see it start jumping up higher than that, the movement wil likely show up in the photo. However, if | had my Tamron 70-200mm fens, | can have the blue line move around between +-6", and it wouldn't show up in the photo. Remember, the more zoom you have, the ‘more accurate your tracking has to be. Recap If you're a little confused (or completely ost! let me simplify this as much as possible. Remember back to focal length, and how that affects things. We generally want more zoom, so the objects appear larger in the frame and we can see more details. However, more zoom also requires more accurate tracking. If your star tracker isn't up to the task though, youll quickly see star trails. That's basically the same idea with arc-seconds. For Arc Seconds, we generally want a small number, between 1-2, Inmost cases, 2 is considered the sweet-spot. We determine this c-seconds per pixel” number by the equation: (Pixel size / focal length) x 206 = arc-seconds per pixel If this number is 5 or higher, you probably don’t have enough zoom for the best results. You can either buy a camera with smaller pixels, or get a larger lens/telescope. Either way, it wll lower your “arc-seconds per pixel” and give you better results. | want to be clear here, | would only worry about "arc seconds per pixel” if you want to photograph deep space objects - like nebulae and galaxies. If you want to photograph the Milky Way with a 70-200mmn lens, or something similar, you can get some great photos! All this arc seconds talk is really for people who want to take things to the next level. In most cases, they'll be purchasing a dedicated astro camera, high-end mount, and telescope. In my own experience, I've found myself wishing | had a better "arc-seconds per pixel rating” when photographing some of the nebula in my Deep Space Course. | find that I can’t capture the fine details nearly as well as other folks, who are using cameras with smaller pixels. ‘When it comes to guiding, arc seconds represent tracking accuracy. Again, we want a low number here. Ideally, the RA line on our PHD2 / ASIAir graph will stay around the center line - which represents 0” or perfect tracking. Realistically though, the line will jump up and down between +-4" in most cases, iF not higher. | usually try to match my camera's arc-seconds per pixel rating with the guiding accuracy. In other words, if my camera rating is 2°, I want to see the line on PHD? stay between + or- 2", IFit goes to +-4", or even +-8, then | know I'l ikely have blurry stars. | either need to figure‘out what's going wrong, or just shoot shorter exposures. I'm stil surprised how coo! this photo turned out! | took this image from a fairly light polluted area in Northeastern Ohio last winter. used a D750, Tamron 150-600mm, and SkyGuider Pro. There were quite a few things that went wrong during the shooting process. I forgot fo double check the focus throughout the night, and found that all of my photos taken after about 20 minutes had blumy stars. This was likely due to the cold air shrinking the fens slightly, and throwing off the focus. | did not have an auto-guider when I took this photo either, so 1 was only shooting 30 second exposures. Remember that ugly purple glow that is always present in my D750 photos? It was here too, but | managed to edit the image in a way that suppressed It. Al things considered, it's a miracle | was able to get such an awesome shot with such terrible data! If you want to lear how I edited this photo, check out my Deep Space Course DSLRs Most people start off using a DSLR camera for their astropho- tography, DSLRs have a lot of benefits: high-resolution images, RAW capabilities, huge lens selection, rear LCD screen, easy controls, and more! However, DSLRs do have some notable problems when it comes to astrophotography. The three big problems, in my opinion, are the Bayer Array, IR Cut Filter, and the heat that builds up on the sensor. ‘Sensor Heat Ityou've ever taken a photo longer than one minute, you may have noticed a bunch of bright dots all over the image. These are called "hot pixels", and they are usually caused by the sensor overheating. These hot pixels can ruin an amazing photo, especially if you are taking an 8+ minute photo during the day, using ND filters, Thankfully, there's an easy fix!Long Exposure Noise Reduction is a camera setting that can bbe enabled on most newer cameras. When LENR is tuned (on, your camera will automatically take two photos alight frame and a dark frame. (It will only do this when shooting 41+ second exposures) The Dark Frame will have the exact same settings as your normal photo, but the shutter will stay down. This prevents any ight from reaching the sensor, and allows the camera to map out the hot pixels in the photo. ‘Once the camera has both a dark frame and a light frame, it analyzes them for hot pixels and automatically removes them. UC es From a photographers perspective, turning on LENR will double your shutter speed. Once you begin taking a 30, second photo, you will need to wait a total of 60 seconds before you can use the camera again. The first photo will go, like normal, but during the second photo (dark frame) the camera may say “Job Nr’, and prevent you from pressing any buttons. Once it finishes taking the dark frame, the camera should become usable again. Keep in mind, you can always turn off the camera in the middle of the dark frame, if need be. This will kill the second exposure, and prevent the camera from removing the hot pixels. It shouldn't hurt anything though. | sometimes do this if | know my photo got screwed up by someone's headlamp, No point standing around wasting time on a ruined photo. You may also notice some strange artifacts when using LENR, especially with a wide-angle lens and star tracker. Please read my Nikon D750 article for more information on this problem. | want to be clear, | do not recommend using LENR when doing deep space astrophotography. When we are photo- graphing deep space objects, we tend to take dozens (if not hundreds) of photos and stack them together to reduce grain. If you had LENR turned on, you'd be wasting half of your night taking dark frames. As you'll earn in my Deep Space Course, we can automatically remove hot pixels during our normal photo stacking process. No dark frames required! Bayor Array Every DSLR has a Bayer Array filter, think of a checkerboard with Green, Blue, and Red squares, These squares are little color fitters that cover every pixel on your camera's sensor. ‘The green filters only let green light through to the sensor, blocking most of the red and blue light. Likewise, the red filters block green and blue light, only allowing red light through. Same with Blue, This is what allows your camera to "see" color! However, the design does have some problems, Since green is one of the most prominent colors here on Earth, the Bayer Array usually has 50% green filters. That only leaves 25% for red and 25% for blue. Therefore, a lot of the light that reaches the sensor at night is not being used, Remember, most of the red light that hits a blue or green filter is largely blocked from reaching the sensor. For more technical information on the Bayer Array, | recommend checking out this article, While the Bayer Array has made color photography easy, it tends to cause problems for astrophotography. During the day, there's plenty of light entering the camera. Who cares if some of the red or blue light doesn't reach the pixels, At night though, we need every photon we can get! Also, think about the various nebulae you've seen. Do you recall seeing much green?A Bayer Array will definitely reduce the light gathering capa- bilities of a sensor, but it’s not a huge problem. Newer sensors have truly amazing designs that funnel more light into the actual pixels. The Bayer Arrays also don't block 100% of the light that hits a wrong colored filter. However, a monochrome sensor, with no Bayer Array, should always produce cleaner results. I'll explain monochrome sensors further down in the article. There's one last thing to consider when photographing nebulae. What wavelengths are they actually emitting? By now you've probably heard of Hydrogen Alpha (H-Alphal, which is basically the color red. The specific wavelength of H-Alpha is 656nm, Unfortunately, most cameras block this ‘end of the light spectrum, which leads us to anether problem with DSLRs - the IR Cut Filter. IR Cut Filter Every DSLR has its own filter that blocks UV and IR wave lengths from reaching the sensor. This "IR-Cut Filter" is a small piece of glass that is placed on top of your camera's sensor. If you've ever opened up your camera, this is probably what you saw inside. Every IR-Cut filter isa little different, but the main goal is to limit the wavelengths reaching the sensor to 350nm - 650nm. This should capture the full range of color - from Violet to Red. It will also block out the unwanted UV and IR wavelengths, which can cause problems for photography. The human eye is able to see from roughly 400nm to 700nm, so it makes sense that our ‘cameras should see the same wavelengths as us. ‘As | mentioned earlier, H-Alpha (656nm) is one of the most. prominent wavelengths being emitted by nebulae. This, wavelength is usually blocked by most IR Cut fiers. In other words, your camera is unable to see the red light coming, from the nebula! Only a very small amount of that light will actually reach the pixels on your sensor. If that H-Alpha light hits a green or blue filter on the bayer array, it will be mostly blocked too. As you can see, these various DSLR problems are starting to add up. This is where dedicated astrophotog- raphy cameras come in. Rho Ophiuch’ is a fun object to photograph in the summer. 1 took this photo with @ Tamron 70-200mm, Nikon D750, and ‘SkyGuider Pro. One problem | noticed is that my Nikon 0750 is unable to capture the beautiful red colors that were present. Albest, I have some dim purple light, but not the beautiful H-Alpha light | would have liked to see. DSLR Mods One of the most common questions I get asked is “should | have my camera sensor modified?" If you're unfamiliar with sensor modifications, let me explain. The most common DSLR mod is an "H-Alpha conversion", where your camera's IR Cut filter is replaced with a new one which passes more of the 600nm - 700nm wavelengths through. If you haven't seen them already, please look at these graphs. As you can ‘see, most IR Cut Filters block the red H-Alpha light from reaching your camera. The average DSLR is only able to capture about 20% of the H-Alpha light being emitted by a nebula. A modified IR Cut Filter will allow much more red light through. ‘There are also specific camera models which include a modified IR Cut filter by default, like the Nikon D810A and the new Canon EOS Ra,‘These cameras are usually much more expensive than the standard DSLRs, but tend to have special programming that will make your night easier. For example, the Nikon D810 hhas extended shutter speed options, allowing you to select past 30 seconds. You can also zoom in further during Live View. I've considered getting an astro camera like the EOS Ra, but decided that a real astrophotography camera may be ‘a better investment. Welll cover that in the next section. If you are considering modifying your DSLR, be aware that there are usually two options. We've already discussed the first option - H-Alpha, The second option is called Full Spectrum, and it will completely change the way your camera works. Ifyou get the Full Spectrum mod, your IR Cut filter will usually be replaced with a clear piece of glass. This glass does not block any UV or IR light. Therefore, your camera can now see Ultraviolet, Visible, and Infrared wavelengths! This has multiple benefits and drawbacks. Let's start with the benefits of a Full Spectrum mod. First, you can do UV or IR photography! This can be a fun way to, Use an old camera, and capture unique photos. Just be aware, you will need to purchase special filters. These Various filters will block visible, IR, and/or UV light, allowing, you to focus on specific ranges. If you don't use a fiter, all of your images will have a strange purple color cast and you ‘may have a hard time focusing. All things considered, I'd generally recommend avoiding a Full Spectrum mod, unless you know what you are doing, Alllof the photos you see on my website were taken with a stock Nikon D750, which does a terrible job of capturing H-Alpha light. I've considered getting an H-Alpha mod, but ultimately decided against it for a few reasons. First, | only have one DSLR and | need it to perform great for landscapes, wildlife, portraits, etc... Second, I'd rather save that money and put it towards a dedicated astro camera in the future. My Nikon D750 does well enough, especially with a few editing techniques. Lastly, I've seen very heavy color casts with modified cameras. These color casts can be a nightmare to remove, especially if you do wide-angle nightscapes. All things considered, | don't see the point in getting my DSLR modified, Mirrorless Cameras | get quite a few questions on mirrorless cameras, so | figured I'd include a section in this article, Overall | think mirrorless cameras do a good job, but they have some problems. Alot of people love the digital viewfinder. It can show you a real-time preview of how your photos will actually look, you can see the zebra pattern to make sure your image is focused properly, you can view your playback images easily on sunny days, and much more. However, | think the display usually looks like a cheap old CRT TV, not very pleasing to look at. I've tried out various Nikon, Sony, and Canon mirrorless and they all seem to have the same quality viewfinder display. If this doesn't bother you, than you'll probably love having a rorless camera! I'd rather use the old optical viewfinder, so I'm fine with my DSLR for now. IF you've got a DSLR, and have been considering a mirrorless camera, dor't forget about the different lenses! Nikon uses a new Z-Mount, which is much larger than the old F-Mount. Therefore, you need to buy a special adapter to utilize your lenses with the new camera body. This adapter will add extra weight and bulk to a mirrorless setup. If you want to get a new Z-Mount lens though, you'll be paying quite a bit mo I'm sure you've also heard about the infamous Sony Stars ‘ater bug. Basically, the noise-reduction algorithm would accidentally target stars (thinking they were hot pixels, or grain) and remove them from the photo. To be honest, | try to do this in post-processing, since it can help make nebula, galaxies, and dust stand out better from a "noisy" background of bright stars. However, many people were rightly disappointed because it affected RAW images, whichshouldn't have any noise reduction applied anyway, One of the best reasons to get a mirrorless camera for astro is the improved Live View. With most new mirrorless cameras you can actually see the Milky Way in real-time when using Live View. It really is amazing the first time you see it! If you currently have a DSLR, then you know how hard it is to see anything during Live View at night. At best, we can see a few bright stars. If you've got bad eyes, a mir- rorless camera can certainly make things easier for you at night ‘There's one other thing to consider when choosing a mirror- less camera for astrophotography - sensor heat. When you Use Live View, the sensor is exposed to light and a signal is continually being sent to the camera's LCD screen. This process generates a lot of heat! Now, with a DSLR we don't have to use Live View, although it is very helpful for focusing and composing a shot. A mirrorless camera will always be using some sort of Live View, either in the viewfinder or the rear LCD screen. Therefore, a mirrorless camera will run hotter than a DSLR in most cases. With all that being said, | wouldn't worry about the Live View heat too much. If you take a 1+ minute photo your sensor will begin to overheat anyway, and hot pixels will begin to show up in your photos. This is true of both mirrorless and DSLR cameras. | normally take 4+ minute photos, and my photos are always covered in hot pixels. This is why | use Long Exposure Noise Reduction to automatically remove them. I want to reiterate though, | do not use LENR when doing deep space astro, only for fore- ground photos at night, So, what's my final word on mirrorless? I've considered getting one, but due to the lens selection, mediocre digital viewfinder, and bad ergonomics, I've held off. If you plan to just use the mirrorless camera for astrophotography, either Milky Way or Deep Space, | think it will do a great job in most cases! I'm fine with my DSLR for now though. Sometimes you may want less zoom. In this case | used @ ~350mm focal length to capture both the upper and lower portions of the Vail Nebula. Altematively, | could have zoomed into 600mm and focused on a single piece. Dedicated Astrophotography Cameras (Once you've mastered a DSLR for astrophotography, you can take things to the next level with a dedicated astrophotogra- phy camera, These are quite different from DSLRs - they lack an LCD screen, there are no buttons, they have much smaller sensors (usually), and they don't even look like a camera! Take a look at the ZWO ASI 1600MM, which is currently a popular astro camera, remember the first time | saw these little astro cameras, | was pretty confused! Why would you want a small sensor? Why are they so low-res? Where is the screen? How do you even take a photo? Let's start with the most obvious problem - how do you take photos with a CCD-style camera? The short version is that you'll need a laptop to control your camera. Once your dedicated astro camera is connected to the laptop, you can Use one of many different applications to take your images. Alternatively, you could use the ZWO ASIAir, which will allow you to do a polar alignment, auto-guiding, and even take Photos all from one app on your smartphone! ZWO is currently (as of December 2019) preparing to release a new version of their ASIAir, but here's an overview of the original