My New "Not So" Camera

K9Kirk · Feb 22, 2019

Ok, so I recently bought a not so great a camera (Canon T6) but I'm not a professional and don't need the best camera to show off my lack luster photography skills, a much cheaper one will do that just fine. :allteeth:

I'm curious what most people on a budget think is a good, "not so expensive" lens to get for astrophotography. I know you would want one with a big aper and I would personally want one that's close to 14mm, no higher. All suggestions are welcome, thanks!

slat · Feb 24, 2019

I use a Rokinon 16mm f/2.0 for astro. I have good results with it.

TCampbell · Feb 27, 2019

You said "not so expensive" and then you said "astrophotography" in the same sentence. Those things usually don't go together.

The Rokinon lenses are about as inexpensive as it gets. These are completely manually lenses (which is fine since auto-focus and metering don't work on stars anyway). They do have quality-control issues. The optics tend to be pretty good IF you get a good copy. But it's not uncommon for a Rokinon lens to have "de-centered" optics. That means stars on one side of the frame look good, and stars on the other side of the frame have issues. While any lens will typically go a little soft at edges and corners, they do so in a symmetric pattern based on distance from the center of the frame. In other words a star in the upper-right corner might be slightly soft (compared to a star in the center), but the relative sharpness of the stars in each corner should be about the same. If some corners are noticeable worse than others... you would probably want to exchange the lens for a different copy. (A tip to improve overall sharpness is to put the star you use for focus at about 1/3 to 1/2 of the distance away from center of frame. This fractionally sacrifices some sharpness at the very center, but it greatly increases the average sharpness around the edges. The whole frame will look a little sharper overall.)

You'll be able to take exposures up to about 20 seconds long with that focal length.

To take longer frames (assuming you want pin-point sharp stars) will require a tracking head (such as a Sky Watcher "Star Adventurer" head or an iOptron "Sky Guider" head ... these are in the $300-400 price range).

You also need a solid tripod as well.

K9Kirk · Feb 28, 2019

I found some video's on cheap ways to build your own tracking head, has anyone ever built one themselves? I know they're more work and maybe not as accurate but I have the feeling that if you get some good pics you may get more satisfaction knowing you tracked it yourself. I imagine though if you did a lot of astrophotography using this method it would get tiresome real fast.