Camera Settings

[mick pinner]

hi guys, can someone give me some idea of the basic settings you use when shooting brighter DSO's with the 350D, ANY HELP IS APPRECIATED.

[iceman (Mike)]

Mirror lockup: ON
Noise reduction: ON
^^ These are both set in the "custom functions" area.

ISO: 400-1600 (your choice). Typically I'd go for around 800 to start
Manual Mode
Aperture: wide open
Exposure time: Your choice, I'd start at 30-60s and see what errors you have in your tracking

[JohnH]

ISO 800, Manual mode, NR off (use darks), Mirror lock off (only use it for moon shots), RAW exposure 30s to start on a bright DSO - up to 3-4 mins is my limit so far but I would like to go deeper...

If using piggyback with my lenses I close down two stops to reduce CA and spherical aberation - but then my lenses are the consumer grade.

[Striker (Tony)]

I personaly would have the Mirror lock on.

The shutter can be very violent..this will affect imaging at long focal length as the smallest movement will ruin your image.

Sure start with it off but I never take an image with it off.....normaly a 5 second delay is sufficent for me....this gives the scope time to settle if the shutter cause's the slightest of movement....I am talking very minor movement here.

[JohnH]

There was a long thread on this a while ago on DigitalAstro - I think - consensus was that any "shakes" from mirror flip on a long exposures (DSOs) would be negligeable but for short shots (planetry) it is mandatory. I use an LPI for planetary work so I leave it off, I guess that really it cannot do harm to leave it on - it only wastes a little potential light time and is something else you can forget to turn off again after finishing your imaging run....minor issues both.

[Striker (Tony)]

I agree John the issue is minor and Mick can experiment either way once he gets used to the camera.

I do feal however it does help with longer focal length images.

Mick has a 12" Meade focal length 3000mm..if Mick is going to image at this focal length then he will soon see how much the slightest movement of vibration will affect his image.

Enjoy your camera Mick.....you will be surprised once you start taking even 1 minute exposures.

P.s buy a 6.3 focal reducer.

[JohnH]

Originally Posted by Striker

...Mick has a 12" Meade focal length 3000mm...

Eeeek!

Originally Posted by Striker

...P.s buy a 6.3 focal reducer....

Agree, and a piggy back mount if you do not have one, then you can have plenty of fun and not too much frustration to start off with...

[mick pinner]

thank you guys, l already have both the 6.3 and 3.3 focal reducers, initially l will do some imaging through the Zenithstar and l have an ED100 coming soon and then move on to that, l'll get used to the shorter f/l wide field stuff first but l do think l will have a lot of fun.

[rogerg (Roger)]

I've quite enjoyed using my 350D on my 12" LX200 classic with the F/6.3 reducer. F/10 is not so rewarding, and F/3.3 I've never got good results from - huge distortion. But, I have found the 6.3 gives very nice images with the 350D.

hmm.. and to add to the debate, I haven't used Mirror Lock yet... so haven't had a problem with shake becaue of it. Think I've been sticking around 400ASA 90% of the time too. Almost exclusively doing 2 & 5 minute exposures.

Definitely always use it with noise rduction turned off, after 2 exposures I realised what it was doing and got tired of waiting for it to take a dark for every exposure when I could just do perhaps 8 for the night and subtract them from all images.

Roger.

[beren]

Mick the guys have covered most things but the best thing ive found when using my D70 is being able to control the camera from a laptop/pc. Through the program Images Plus {think DSLR focus does the same thing} I can set my focus ,adjust camera settings and organise a series of automated exposures and transfer straight to my hardrive ready for processing .No fiddling around the camera etc, makes the task a lot easier and isnt complicated.