Which DSLR?

[Miaplacidus]

Hello fellow astroimagers, one and all.
A poem for youse. (But not a villanelle.)
One week. A birthday. About fifteen hundred dollars.
What should I buy?
("Second hand??" some dunderhead hollers.)
And why? O why?

Thanx,
Brine.

[gregbradley]

If your interest is Astrophography then a modified Canon is the go.

Which model?

Others may be more current than my info but a modified Canon 40D is probably still top of the heap.

Which modification?

The one with the clear filter replacement. This means with an additional external filter (Xnite CC1 filter, I think 68mm worth about $100 or so) you can still take terrestial photos with your DSLR and still retain autofocus. It means though you need a Baader UV/IR cut filter (50mm) worth about $150 or more.

Additionally with the clear mod you can get yourself an infrared filter should you want to do terrestial infrared imaging. So this option is a bit more flexible.

If you get the UV/IR filter installed in place of the stock Canon one autofocus is lost (due to the distance change) and terrestial imaging will be very very red biased images and somewhat unusable.

Hutech sells them and they are also often for sale on Astromart.com second hand.

Some use Nikon cameras and I am not current with them - I know the D40 was popular at one point. Some later models had more noise. Not sure about the newest and latest. But Nikon does not have a lossless RAW file (the type of file you want to save your astro images in as it is all the data collected). It applies a blur to reduce noise and this can affect image quality slightly (not much).

Certainly the bulk use Canon EOS DSLRs. Others usually have too much noise or some other problem and the Canon is well supported by software and accessories.

You can still do astro imaging with a stock camera - especially the 40D which seems more red sensitive than its predecessors - but the sensitivity to H alpha light is very weak and this is where most nebula are brightest. So its difficult to get all the data needed to make a great shot and images typically are too blue or green and the red is way too weak. Hence the advantage of a clear optical glass modified Canon 40D with a Baader 50mm UV/IR filter you can attach and an Xnite CC1 filter for daylight photography.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Or check this one- a Canon 20Da - which was a limited run model made by Caon especially for astrophotgraphy with live view focusing on the back LCD and a special filter over the chip with good Ha response but also useable during daylight.

I have seen lots of incredible images from those using this camera. It has other subtle modifications that make it ideal for astro work.

US$1100

http://www.astromart.com/classifieds/details.asp?classified_id=584222

Greg.