Wife got a Canon 400D - what h/w or s/w should for astro photography camera control?
As the thread says, today my wife purchased a Canon 400D DSLR - yah wife unit!
I am sure I have an adapter for our old Canon EOS 1000 to connect it to a 1.25" lens barrel, and I have a Meade Motor focuser and JMI PC USB converter to get the motor focuser to be PC control, and I just got DSLR Focus software, and I have Adobe CS Photoshop so...
What other software and/or hardware should I get?
For instance do I need something to control the camera other than a USB cable - e.g. to go past 30 seconds exposure with this camera do you need a special cable and/or hardware device and/or usb/Serial port / parallel port converter to control all the camera's functions from my PC?
I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions about must have, should have or nice to have software to automate the camera.
You cannot use DSLRFocus to control as yet, because the driver for the 400D is deifferent to it's predecessor's. Regarding the DIY serial cable used for setting exposures longer than 30 seconds it works like a charm.
Software that I know does work is DSLR Shutter (timed exposures) and MAXDSLR (focus assistence and times exposures). Both these products require the DIY serial cable, instructions for which can be found on the DSLR Focus website.
Ta, thanks guys - I just read that about DSLR Focus not yet controlling the 400D - hope that upgrade fix does come soon!
That DIY cable looks beyond what I'd want to do at home (wimp out), so I might buy one off shoestring astronomy - they've done well by me in the past!
PS
I did ask the salesman serving us I specifically about the cabling needed to control this camera remotely for PC controlled astrophotography, his response - no idea! At least he was honest! I asked my brother who works for Canon research labs if you needed any cables to run this camera and his thoughts were no, data and control signals all run over the USB 2.0 bus, and their is an SDK available too. Have to probe if there is a way without the Bulb function to do long shots!
What are you shooting it through? Refractor, newt or sct? I'm guessing SCT as you have the meade motor focuser (though it does work on some refractors as well). If so then you might want to consider a 6.3 focal reducer/field flattener, a T adapter to go from FR to T camera adapter. See images.
You might also want to check out ImagesPlus for processing, it also has camera control incorporated in the program as well. Unfortunately I don't know if the 400D is enabled for it yet.
Thanks - I have a 9.25 SCT (no focal reducer yet) and 80mm Refractor.
I have the adapter and Canon EOS camera connectors, only my adpater is about 6 inches long and you can fit any Plossl eyepiece inside it (something that Astro Optical sold me year ago).
Puzzled that my brother thinks you can run all of the Camera from the Canon software over USB (which seems entirely reasonable) but I can't see this documented anywhere!