AMATEUR . if ee Oo arnt pol qo Lune rhs Sua SeS - www. AUR eto Caen yt et UA UA “CAB >WINNER, | cee WINNER, | a WINN Se pe WINNER, WINNER | ys to announce the Bran Pe elm Ey OPTAS 2016 PICNIC! Dm GK ond ane Te ee OTe Re hs geo neg e9 ) 35 Po be) Ed leans eka i AN s8 i i Cee ee ce ry gee Me teen ery law e ea) ath cried CC Cote) sh a ered sepa pa ee eee) Cee OPTtelescopes.com | 800.483.6287SBIG IMAGING SYSTEMS eee) STX- Pe Ree CCU ELL aen Oe eet COM Deu Tee Een Se oe RMR Oboe RGB tno od PSM Co RU MATTOS mATtte yam DCMU N NUD Ceoya Com TICS a Ports ROU CR Ce Rui Osh at ee tes CPB Rio eo gee rc ia SS UEC Coens toe SRO aCCR eR UPS em ECC co SOF OD MRA es oe Reon ce OU GB Te ne VET Ge Dn Rn ROR ORG nnn SBIG Imaging Systems| 59 Grenfell Crescent, Unit B, Ottawa, ON Canada, K2G 0G3 ACRES ret rerio reer a a te i ee ec)toe PRIM that we test and guarantee to offer BOUCE A complete catalog of products searching for the best, you ace best performances and high quality. know whom to call ‘La Everything for our passion: Astronomy. 1OR IDE “ south -> weston sky with 8 very scenic Jandstape in the background And the results? Magical! While the sky it relatively dark, thera's stil ‘some ight pollution in the ¢outh from Kingston. Due to our location fon the north shave of Lake Ontario, that's pratty much unavoidable, But the landscape itsaif is what made the location. Everything was pertect. It was 6 clear, mooniass night. And the almosphere Was unusually steady far this region. The location was perfect. My gear was ready and i top shape. | recently replaced my wobibly oi! tripod with a new heavy duty Manfrotia MTOSSXPROS to Keep everything steady, | had fresh batteries in my IGptrom Sky Tracksr, My first project of the night was to do a time lapse of the Milky Way using hall-speed tracking - something I'd been wanting to da for a Jong time, but had naver had the opportunity, With Plan A shot, | wiped down my lense and proceeded to shoot a ‘couple of other wide angie shots of the Milky Way. Lens foaging was really affecting me badly on this lens since it had been out for a while and had reached ambient temperature. So | only really got 1 good shot with i before | had to switch out Not kei, but still quite good!At this point, | realized | really had no other option than to switch lenses, Adam had been shooting the care of the Mitky Way nice 35mm f/1,4 lens and was gatting amazing shots. He's got a prety killer Fuji camera that can gat far better results than NY push the ISO settings on my Nikan 07000 anywhere near what he can withaut gatting a lot of noise. But I figured would follow suit and experiment anyway, | popped on my 25mm 1/1.8 lens and decided | would try to da some panoramic shots. nis being the first time I've done Milky Way photography while trying to include a proper foreground Iandscape, it tack a bit of experimenting with ISO settings. | cranked the ISO ta 3200 (WAY higher than I'd ever hadit) and took 2 shots that | stitched pgether to make this panorama, The results were actually pretly good! The background is a litle noisy, but manageable | was bie to clean it up surprisingly welll But of course, that high of an ISO setting really brought aut the light pollution from Kingston south | experimented with a few few more exposure and ISO settings before setting on my final settings © 2500. | readjusted my position somewhat to get a better view of the water and took 4 shots with the intent so stitch them gether in. panorama, This time, | hit the jackpot! | think at this point, he stars lined up just right for me (pun ‘Al the conditions were perfect! The water was completely stil and looked lke a sheet of glass. My pasition tings were just night. The mist on the ake had cleared up near the shore and was out over} the water near the island. | framed up my shot and took 4 images he final result can be seen over the page: it's not only my best Miley Way to dat, but also | think my best image fe ever taken, And due to being 3 multeframe orginal mage cocks in at @ whopping 51.3 megaphxels ( aning this thing can be printed in some craz while mainta ution S actually my frst photo that | can say fd te more than ry t0 oer prints of. | plan on getting this printes (1 @ 98 x 24 fortnat of sc 5 want a print of this i contacted g graphy eoDR Re) Pac) Dune cs error COA eee Stitched in Microsatt ICE and post processing in Photos Tee on Rene a4 REVOLUTION IMAGER SEE THE MAGNIFICENT sooo BACnaeleds BACKYARD Revolution Imager is excited to announce our Revolution Imager R2- In the eel MMT ee ae Ele LC o Cola rsa Co uae coe oe Observing and imaging an easier and more affordable solution we introduce the R2 iia MeN es ca alamo D mol 1 oe omelet aay 8 ETM urn Malis com omer Let ge ack the Use Promotion code eR lmls 1g fy introductory offer to include the FREE USB capture card so you can save images to your computer. $2 WIDE RANGE OF PRODUCTS ‘OP SHOP FOR OPTICS Moravian Instruments, Teleskop-Service and many more!" * a Call 020 33 845 187 between 9am - 8pm 7 days a week \ W. dC < tronomy.comiS a Sloe ts The Led . Siete seine 4 Astronomy. ~ Perret Tere) Centre a OEE ee een Pear a Great Service and Best Prices We offer a wide range of telescopes and accessories for all your star-gazing needs, beginners and experts alike, at our best prices - with free shipping (orsers ov paintans) We are official deaters for stocks RCELESTRON- \ ELLIE = © Vixen = Get expert, friendly advice to select the www.astronomycentre.co.uk De ecm ere 01223 91 Oe eee cent UK ASTRONOMY BUY & SELL on-line since 2003 UK's largest trading place for new & used telescopes and accessories Over the past 11 years UK AstroBuySell has grown to become Uk’s largest, busiest, most trusted and most recommended astro-classified web site in the UK! baste rle er TIN Sella nie Orel er-K- * 1500+ visitors per day Old ads are archived, creating Ps Rae er} a very large database of equipment 2 ag Soe Se pricing and availability - no other lotsa th eR Rosa (ol- CMa * Browse all ads or search Oe re NRC a Moe) by type, key word, location Sayerwww.eddingtc> North Cornwall Coast sring holidays and short breaks in beautiful North ll. Spend ey days at the beach or walking the € and nights gazing at the stars in’our bespoke tion pods and fullyequipped observatory.” ar mnt a ee al ld / fi n-lodge.co.uk [ageTUTORIAL Producing Deep Space Mosaics with EQMosaic and ASCOM by Kayron Mercieca www. lightvortexastronomy.com Producing Deep Space Mosaics with EQMosaic and ASCOM At times, we wish to capture larger areas of deep space that our tlescope and camera fiald of view does not cover in one frame. Cther times, we purposefully want to capture multiple small segments of deep space in order to join tham up later, thus producing very high resoliston images. Whichever the aim, mosaics are fun to produce but take some care to do correctty. ‘The toal we will employ 1s a small subsidiary to the popular EQMod thal controls telescope maunts via ASCOM, You will therefore need to be controlling your Before starting, ensure the GPS co-ordinates in your ASCOM software using ASCOM in order for this and Stellarium match precisely, Let us say for now that | want to image the nebulosity below the constellation of Cassiopela. | want to do it with downloaded free trom this my wie lup, the Bceg 77EDII Fa.6 telescope and ATIK 383+ downtoad and install the tatast version before © CCD camera. | wil first add these to Stellarium ai ae t starting this tutorial field of view produced. For this, we chck the spanner icon on the t ght comer, the Oculars plugin configuration, Please note that for this tutorial, | will be using the ASCOM simulator and Stellarium with Stefarium: Scope {for goto), You are welcome to use the also: popular Cartes du Ciel, which has the same aties STEP 4. Onentating ourselves with our target fis necessary to first orientate ourselves with our target region of deep to decide what itis we want to capture and how we want to orientate the camera. S ‘excelent program for ths because it provides a tool to project your telescope. ‘camera field of view and show you the night sky in equatortal mode (as your telescope will see It)| will frst add my CCD camer. Goto the Sensors tab, c then fil in the rolevant details. You seqsor's specications to Ki sensor's details from ATIK's ‘Now | will add my telescape. Go to the Telescopes tab, click Add and again fil in the relevant details. This sier as all that is asked or is a name, the focal length ang ine: Ensure the correct C ope af selected on Coulars plugin (f you have more than one of elther add would be captured by our setup. Though this is helpful : y in equatorial mi match what 01 era would actually capture, For Switch between equatorial and along the bottom toolbar {or CTRL click tne rectangular co frame buttonwe also cfick the Equatorial gr botiom toolbar (press E}, you will se ‘overlaid on the night sky, bution along ine the tittle The reason to enable this js simple but tak explanation beforehand. EQMosaic works by providing a starting position in the night sky. Fram ther you can ask EQMosaic to offset your tolescs Ascension or Declination along & 2D grid. The 0 are calculated based on your fietd of view and your chosan overlap percentage betwaan mosaic segmants [An important point here is that the fieks calculated as a perfect square-on rect equatorial grid. In other words, your camera is aligned perf f view is le along the Ascension or Dec! pose your rtat rer at an angle if you ‘your camera in the facuser by say 30", EQMosaic has no way of knowing this and will sil offset your mosaic segments as if the view was perfectly win the above screen tan square-on rectangular (as she shot). Therefore, if you sre sure you wish to image angle such as 20°, please nate you can do so but you il need to increase the overlap percentage later to avoid gaps. However, if you want to avoid potential Issues, itis best we stick to 0° (as shown in the above's 0" (clockwise o 2. itis t a hn result in @ perpendicular of the camera with respect to the equatorial your overtap percentage in EQMosaic wi @ entire length of the he sam alignment rid and ther match mosaic segments across mages, jenshot we are sesing the camera in default angle, 0°. Play around with framing your target to see what fits best- 0° or 90". To rotate the field of view by 80", just click the -15* or +15" buttons on the Ocutars plugin six times unt the angle is +/-0" (again, clockwise oF counter-clockwise as t dos not matter) In the above ser For this particular target with my particular field ‘everything shown in Stellarium by producing with the camera at 90° (mosaic segments next this would make the image a bit too tong with | would prefer to image four mosaic sagmants and with the camera at O" instead. | prefer this purely because it will maintain the aspect ratio f my camera but it does imply having ta image four segments rather than three. I really fs totally up to you what you do as per your mosaic plan, However, remember the point about camara angles. Feel free to us ou Bike and even mark your focuser with an angie measurer iFnead be, but do remember about EQMosaic’s ovarian percentage Naving to be larper to avoid gaps. A 30° angie can potentially require upwards of 20% overlap rather than 10% that woul suffice for O° or 90°, remembering that overapped space is essentially wasted imaging area of deep space, only useful to join up the mosaic segments, ‘view. | could capture 6 mosaic segments each ather). How yeight for my taste 8 whatever angie The following four scree as a mosaic. whal | plan to image for this abjectIwas careful to move the field of view rectangle acr my desired ares of deep space ensuring some overtap stars but please note this is on! telescope and therefor plausibie, A nice point ta inser telescope-camera setups, one capable of imaging this, whole area of deep space in one frame and this one, requiring four mosaic segments to image the aren. What to choose? You might js i field Setup and reduce my imaging time four times". Fair enough, but consider that what you will end up with is an 8.3 MegaPixel imag whale region (I use my ATIK 383+ CCD camera here as the example). Choosing to instead image this with your narrawer-field setup and doing it in four ans you will effectively have @ | image of the region, Now that is a beauty of mosaics, STEP 2, Configuring E ith our field of vie atainly & to gat your head aroun, vil be Of by a faily telescope mount. Tha Get Position by used t0 © fonise) your starting point on the grid to your's the light sky, al has a special i exolore the three OFid available for mos segments. Fé is alway: your starting point and \e ane you are Right Ascension and Declination co-ordinat as the offset from the stating point wath our field of view and overiap percentage, click the arrow ion button at the ve top-right to expand the configuration.the overlap percentage. simply increaseidecrease the two ders for overlap in ngs and the peccontage will change dingty. | preter Keeping bath Right Ascension and Deciination on the same overlap percentages, particularly since | image at 0° or to kbep things nice and trouble-free. In my experience, 10 sufficient when you make sure you camera is indeed in th angle in the focuser (if off, not aft by very much at al). ‘You can save presets for tne field of view, All you would need to do is ater th n Presets and click Save. A nice idea here might be ti Save your field af view for 0” and 90°, maybe even for multi tl igurations. scope-camera cont (Once you are happy with your field of view and overlap percentage we proceed to actually create the mosaic in EQMosaic We will start with configuring the fisld of view. Click the calculator icon button under Fren nosaic in EOMosaic We first need to execute # goto command to slaw the telescope t target region. Before we do this though, choose a starting point. For example, | have four mosaic segments | want to image. Choase the cone that vill be your starting point and we wil create the other three mosaic segments trom aftsets in EQMosaic Choosing the starting point is not arbitrary if you vrant things to be optimum, You need to pick a star that it more or less central to ane of your mosaic segments so that Stellanum can actuelly perform the goto mand (otherwise it has no klea where you want i to point Consider this. as well: You cannot image all four mosaic segments in one night and wil need to return anather night to finish, The second right, you slew to your target but is t centred.as it wes the first night? AstroTortila (free plate oftware) can ensure that and this tutorial will help you set it up if you want to use it. its to what we had ta tellarium, 80 you should already know what Looking at my planned four mosaic segments, | note the third image to enter for your telescope-camera setup. The first four segment actually has a nice fields (PixelSize and ArraySize) are essentially to do a with your CCD sensor whereas the last two fields Focallength and BartowiReducer) are to do wn ye telescope. | never touch Bariow/Reducer and instead just alter Focal ength based on how my telescope is wed, Once you have entered your ¢ click Calculate and then olick Apply. FOV = RA and FOV ai should tisplay the correct field of r anger than FOV - DEC? vious « the CCD sensor is a rectangle as such, Now, 100k a Stellarium whilst on equatorial mode, You will $00 that ind along Right Ascension than Declination. Il orrect that FOV - RAs larger than FOV - DEC and not the other way around. Therefore, this.'s what we want for our amera angled at 0", you have actuatly set your camera at 90°, you simply need to swap ArraySizex and ArraySizeY (in my atvler 2504 tor and Image pa flekd of view ArraySizeX and 3362 for ArraySize¥}. This will also I you cannot find 2 central star in any of the mosaic segments, do not Swag the field of view an Right Ascension and Dac worry, just pick one that is dase to being central. When you select a ination such that FOV - DEC will be larger than FOV- star, press SPACE and your view will centre the star $0 you can RA. in other words, EQMosaic wall know your camera is at 90° and not 0°. Please keep this in mind. isely See the field of view rectangl segment so | am happy to set I press CTRL 1 to perform the goto.st using AstroTortlla santred on the t Hf you have not performed a g probably not and even if you have, we may not be perfect! the starting point is not centred, the other mosaic segments will not be What we will do now reference this with Stetlarlum to che ye have chosen th imaging plan. A nice trick fi hair in Stellarium anc p seni tion on the night s Stellarium and so if yau slew, the field of in Ste¥arium will move to foll‘Oops! We have gone off target. To correct this, double Sill on the right track, itis s that £6 (right abx click FS, which is your starting paint and the telescope 2saie Segment and indeed itis will slew back to where it was, Since we clearly do n0 want FS as a mosaic sagment, just click Get Position tc delete everything and re-select your presant po: the starting point F8. So, let us click F7 to the point E7 in EQMosaic Thera we are reated in EOI Clearly match our target. If at any point you have made a mistake by going to a grid posnt that was nol nt to your mosaic, just double Click FS 10 return the starting pint and click Get Position to reset EQMosaic and start aver nubile click your created grid points in Et w rectangle mo: the night sky in thot indeed there is @ nioe overiap between mos: leis the op that allows you iter. I you ere g the overtap in field of vew ractangla, It is probable your EQMos: not mat Jiarium's. Check that indeed EQM ngle, Remember, using an rom being tire length of th © ihe overlap percentages. Since we will No G image a save this session. Under Session, | enter a nanSTT Series STT-1603 / 3200 / 8300 MRS) ae) eR RR el Rae ace la Compare these STT Re ee ge firenerperrrrrs § © Series cameras offer features and Wheel is a positive centering mechanism that camera: Berea Reel) Pe eee ae Re Ray camera - of any size Drawing on all of exactly the same position over the CCD every ire eh a eo ea Gee a aid Ne tick ome ers Ce ee os by mh eT a hae ad ee ee ey Lepcadly SE ma) Cee ae ke. system, packed intoa4.9*%49x29 the re-positioning of the eis filters was accurate to " See te Ce MR UE talc 7 eee ee ce ee ec nC than -50C with air only: water cooling carousel, This degree of precision means that eS cr Ct ye ed camera; full frame buffer; fast low-noise returned are accurate to a.single pixel. An ature Coil Petrie ect eu ttt ey uil-n Frost Detettic Buin REI Pref Cee Geers Dee cu Cue a chamber window; intemal user kun ead oT eee) Se eee 2VDC Operation Oe ee ee ry Lowest Noise 10M eens Readout (<1 sec dow i tla al Deen a eg ee ae eed Pe ee eee ee Cu a ee fe Eo ee ee ee reg from other designs. path and a flat field was taken. The image Meee ee ot eae uo er De ee ae ee es Aoki ee er a ued Pe ee a er ey from the guide star is captured before operating remotely: even if remotely means a ard cs lee i, ie tg et CDi Mes east laeadic ta ha Teen ee eG pts: Aipedlel alte geo eo te ae cry Bnet piano as en ee Rules aks er a ol Rd ee a el rete ie een and Astronomik are available for that the shutter mechanism is designed to Ree ae ene! See ce tdDe OR ccd ata ak cg d Cog ee Se Cu uy Pee ceca oe) Cea saeco ke eer) See eam tl gj shutter wheel with a fan- (Cichiaicehie bedi Ce ed Se ee ee Rae tere hen) leaving any area of the sensor exposed for a different eee cee een Rooted Picg er ay Pena ie Oa Se Ce soe | ean eee) Cee te eh tla) eo De US ed Oye ee OM a le eae ee te roe ee ee eee en aut ae Gee Maes ae) twilight flats or any flat field image using short exposure cas Re ad Pe de ae ad eee ec tue Luk cad ee Te ee Ree ad De Deere aC ae RU Ree ec See Re eke Cue Te ee eee Cee ec se ea ue Ce I ee images without any other image processing required. Be ae md taken at room temperature to accentuate the number of ee eee en ee nme ke Ce The carousel holds eight 36mm filters and inserts are eteeemies available for 1.25" filters. eee ee as ee) Coe aad in the image. The user can select from eight levels of fiter strength to ed MR) ee Cetra eae Seen ura iy UU ne ue ae) UL Te S4 sgt aie Prony “ a efficient heat dissipation in a given space, In our tests of Pee eee ee UE ce eed Crete ot et rarer maximum delta of -87C in less than 10 minutes using air cooling only. And, while is should not be necessary to use water cooling in most circumstances, if it should be De ee ce en a) See ee ese) Ee ue Tee water to the adjustable fixtures an the side of the camera Dee ees ee a alg Poa Exceptionally Low Dark Current coca See ee eee ee eae Ty current by 50% for every drop of 5.8 degrees C of cooling Cees) Fee ese ae ea) oe eeseae Ree eae Cg een eee cen Pee att eure gee na Caen ace ered Due Uso er et ee a ay ‘CCD is its relatively high Quantum Efficiency (QE). Dee ae ee tect) ert ee rt) effective QE of the 8300, Many nebulas emit a Cee ne See te eal Ce ee gee era) Cee ee aad Tine eas ee Fe et ee nc Ce a ee ee Dee eee See a) Seri Beets SE Ueno pe Tay Med ae ees Ce eC eee ate Ot tt ee Cee et eee guider. The internal relays used in the STT-8300 design are opto-solated, so that no external relay eae kee cd Ce et ea) eee ee Ue eet eed aD ene cay ‘The STT Series cameras come with its own Perera en ume ee aE ie era bed De Een ee ean eet ee ee Renee amc) PU ee Oe rue hoa cc] te ero ety OR ne ee RS une Dey STT-8300M is the standard model, with KAF-8300 monochrome fe SCE TCs MRR KER am Bore) Be eM eee elem) og 8 weeks for delivery. ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTSI aNaS 1 @ Dh melas eke = Voigtlander 15mm 14.5 Heliar Ill Astrophotography Review | recently had the opportunity to shoot some astro- photography with a int Simi 4.5 Hosa it, With its {4 5 aperture, tho 15mm Heliar Il ist the m it actually performed wea, asp the ony 87H), This review is as itis en experiment shooting the Milky Way w siow lens. Read on for more about my experiance ‘shooting the night sky with the Voigtlander 15am 4.5 Heli I Introduction The Voigtlander 1Senm 114.5 that's made for M moun M, but i's also easily aday ella fl is @ unique lens Oe Ra, ae Cas eum Lhe TUTORIALS, TOO! ra ee oe ngolinders, It has a supe of — perfect for 9 fandscap published my jaw of the V mh 14.5 Hoar ith shooting wii pple real-world 1 af the lens, quirks of ample phate tandscapes and adventure photography}, This sion at that ¢ ctive by clicking here. I spents al weeks shooting the deserts of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexica, and Texas as part of our road trip across the American Southwest You can get updates on our progress at North to South. | have had the Voigtlander 15mm Helles lil mounted to my Sony a7! vie the Hawks Factory Leica M to Sony Eh VS for the entire road trip so far. t'va found it 3 joy to use. The built quality of tha 15mm Heliar lis top notch: i's campact but well ‘Made and stil feels substantia! and well balanced on the a7During my time with the lens, |. oF course, used ita bunch al night for shooting the night sky. | initially figured that 14.5 was a litle bit slow for landscape astrophotography, but the 15mm Heliar Il! pertarmedt admirably, particularly palrad with the full frame. sensor an the a7. A\( told, i's abou! optically equivalent to a comparable 1Ommv2.8 lens for an APS-C camera in terms of total light gathering power. With its relatively slow {4.5 rating, making photos with a typical Milky Way exposure seiting will usually result in a little bit more relative noise than if you were using 2 more gppropriate lens bly already know, | and the 15mm f/4.5 Heliar ill seemed ke a prime candidate to thing most people would think of doing with such a s! jens: low-ight shooting, | hal two distinct opportunities to use the fens for shooting the Milky Way: The first was a brief sessian at Valley Fire State Park in Nevada with only @ short window of time betwet the rise of the Milky Way and moonrise The second opportunity was during a backcountry backpacking trip at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, the same piace where ! made the photos for my recent smarty -ophatography amtice. Both desert locales offered very different Conditions. Valley of Fire was very warm at night with hazy clouds and lots of light pobution from Las Vegas, while White Sands was cool and damp trom a recent rainstorm with very dark skies tut its of Bght pollution being reflected off of thick, fast moving clouds The 18mm Heilar Il did much better wan | expected for an {14.5 lens, in large part, 'm sure. due to the excellent sensor on the Sony a71t the Adliy Way with a Smart Sands National Monument, Ni. 154 8, a7H, 4.8, 30m. 1S Full Re All of the sample images on this review were made on the Sony a7! and processed in Adobe Lightroom 5.7.1 and/or Adobe Photoshop CSé The full resolution images are downloadable via the caption links. Now iet's tatk about the shooting experience v Voigtiander 1mm ti4.5 Hela lit vith the Shooting Siow IW be honest and say that a faster uttra wide angle lens like tye Rokinon 14m 42.8 (full review) ts better suited to astrophotography over the Voigtlander 15mmi4.5 Heliar Ill, A faster lens (lower finumber) always allow the camera to collect more fight and Produce a less noisy image. | talk about this in more detail on my how to pick a lens’ article That sald, the 15mm Hela I mes with the advantage af being significantty small and essier to use than the cheaper Rokinon 14mm and many other comparable full frame ultra wide angte lenses. If you're willing to compromise litte bit of lens brightness for the other benefits that the Heli Ii presents, its performance is actually quite good at ight with the right tachniqueThe Milky Way at White Sands National Monument, NM. Voigtlander Heliar 1Smmv/4.5, a7), 14.5, 30s, 1SO 1600, Right from the starting gate, # should be expected that ‘shooting uniracked landscape astrophatagraphy with an 1/4 5 lens wall tand to produce noisy results. Shooting With the 15mm Heliar Ill is no exception, but there's a trait that helps the jens out: field of view. The 15mm Holiar {Ii has an ultra wide field of view of about 110" That's really wide. Wide enough that the slow motion of the stars across the sky (from Earth's rotation) wan't be very apparent relative to the total field of view. Basically, the extra field of view makes it possible to use very Jong exposure times — in excess of 30 seconds if needed — in order to gather more light. Being able to use these extra jong shutter times halps compensate for the lens's relatively small aperture. In general, the Jonger we can expose the image, the more light the ‘sensor can collect and the less apparent noise there will Be in the image: Sm ana | found that shooting at 14.5 with & 30 second shutter time ooite adequate amounts of light without showing too much star trailing at normal viewing distances. With 3 30 second exposure time on the 8711'S very high resolution 24 megapixel sensor, there's definitely some noticeable streaking of the stars when viewing the photos at 100% magnification, but it's not apparent when you're locking at the photo as a whole. | fended to keep my ISO at a moderate 1600 for ‘most of my shots, which provided a good balance of brightness and dynamic range a . —— he ed eto tc ic Seek ia) At the time of this writing, there are only @ select few full frame digital cameras that this lens is really suitable for: the Sony a7, a78, a7R, a7 and the various digital Leica M cameras. You can also acant it to various APS-C and Micro 4/3 mirroiess cameras, but there are more appropriate (and typically faster} lenses for those crapped snsor cameras that offer a similar focal length (e.g the Sony = 10-18men/4, Fujifim 14mm 2.8, and the Leica 15mm fi1,7, etc.) While | don't yet have any experience with a cigitsl Leica, | can at least attest to the quality of the Sony sensors, having used most of the variations of their Exmor sensor. Where these sensors really show their strengths is in situations tke this (low light conditions with a siow lens), The amount of shadow detall stil visible in even the darkest parts of the image is just amazing, Since the 15mm Heliaris slow, what | intialy thought would be a brief expenment that would keep me from ever again using siow lenses for astro- photography ended up becoming a testament 10 haw great modem digital sensors really are. ‘Our Camp and the Miky Way at White Sands National Monument, NM. Voigtiénder Hefiar 1Smnv4.5, a7N, 14.5, 30s, 130 1800,One of the biggest positive traits of this lens is that it shows almost no detrimental aberrations in the comers of the image while shooting the stars. Coma and astigmatism seem weil controlled and the stars keep their pinpoint shape at normal viewing distances. If you look really really close, there's perhaps a small amount at tangential astigmatism in the very comer at t/4.5 (look at the bright star Altair in top left corner of the image below), but i's downright minimal. Almost no apparent aberrations indicates that the lens was very well designed and is likely an explanation for why the lens is so sharp, ‘One of the best beneits of using the lens on the a7! with tha helicoid adapter is the bility to calibrate the infinity foous.stap for critical focus This capability makes night sky focusing as easy as just turning the Jens to infinity No need for scrutinizing the focus on the LCD — just set it and forget it This benefit alone is a very desirable trait for photographing the Milky Way, and 8 consideration for choosing an adapted manual fons Bke the Voigitanders. if you're mounting any M mount lens on your Sony E mount camera, get the Hawks Hebooid V5 Adapter, too, if only for the ability to calibrate the infinity stop. It makes the expesence with the The Milky Way at Valley of Fire, NV, Voigtiinder Holiar 1Smnv4.5, aTIl, 14.5, 30s, 1S0.6400, Full Resolution (30.3MB) Conclusions ‘Overall, my experience shooting astrophotos with the Voigitander 15mm 4:5 Heliar Ill exceeded my expectations. It's rather sharp and shows very few sberrations. it's not the brightest lens around, but its excellent bulld quaity, excellent image quality and compact size seem to outweigh the shortcomings It has in the speed department Peace Sees Tek a Meet es The sens's extea wide feld of view makes It possible to easily use @ 30+ seeand long exposure without to much star trailing. Being abie to use these extra long exposures helps compensate for the smallar aperture and as 2 result the lenis manages to produce some decent astrophotos, particularly when paired with a camera like the Sony 87H, The lans trades litle brightness for more portabilty, excellant ergonomics, and excellent image qualily. It would be a fine choice for 8 compact ultra vide angie lens on any of Sony's or Leica’s full frame digital cameras, As a rasult, can actually highly recommend this lens for daytime shooting and astrophotography alike, @ conclusion I dic not expect, VERDICT HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Yet again, many thanks to lan Norman of www-lonelyspeck.comoer CAMERAS ATIK 414EXTHE ATIK 414EX IS THE MOST SENSITIVE CAMERA IN OUR RANGE, AND PERFECT AS A FIRST COOLED CCD CAMERA. IT FOLLOWS IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE WORLD RE- eee NLS AL RTM Rl alesis aU el Le a e018) a LIVING UP TO THE EXCEPTIONAL STANDARD SET BY ITS PREDECESSOR. 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Le Aa ALL OF OUR 4-EX SERIES CAMERAS USE SENSORS EMBEDDED WITH SONY EXVIEW HAD CCD II™ TECHNOLOGY WHICH RE- SIUM H Rone ae Te emelU nee) Baia a oe CIENCY, INCREDIBLY LOW READ NOISE AND EXCELLENT THERMAL MANAGE- SUP Se alClamOl MAUR saa lela CIES MAKE FOR IMPRESSIVE SENSITIVITY ACROSS A VAST RANGE OF WAVE- LENGTHS, BUT BECOME PARTICULARLY peer Pea a RLU eR I li ROWBAND, CAPTURING STUNNING LEVELS OF DETAIL IN EVEN THE FAINTEST OF OBJECTS.= Sky at Neat STirnvaNr + y > rn nS x eC iF a, Soon Me Celead “ye pre Ay Se Fs r | { | FOLLOW US ON il(eidgREADERS IMAGES ” Boge Se aL erat a kt REC Cl oe ies Gilat duet eri Dhl coy Boe iis Feel 7 unis - : ] eofaM27-LRGB Pea cle Cee NEGULA AND OTHERS) IS A LARGE SU eG lodg CRM Pe ee Ca} area Luminance ~ 24x600s - 240 min- DLL ic eee ee Sea e aCe eS CrnL Imacen June 3eo ano 47H, 2016 AUR Lee GULL New Mexico) wit a SBIG STF- 8300M ow an Astro-Tecu Cera ee SL eeefort Pe reed Cell rae Led Sree MLE ae ooo Loe] ere ora ti) rape 1 SW 200 1000, Canon ee pe ee SA eee DAO LC7 “Cauironmia Neguca NGC 1499 H-aceua - June 20, 2016 AO eee eel ee Oe RL Mi CAMERA AND TAKAHASH) FSQ 106 TELescope ON A Sortware Bisque PME f bd De ee UL Pe PRs eae IMAGE By Josep BrimacoMaEpe lade ence LL aol AKL eae ea Ae: in learning the Ela ei Eset ae but Ws willing or Reculae] to commit to. my regular 3 Ca stir not eter ( on Pe er the page and eel ne BSS UT aoliRe LMU ACen nent cel having their Pre eeu se : Ws ie pe aah ot yu PNM ade Mer Cros ae PR ae ee LL eae