Thanks, Fishman! My wife actually linked me this camera because she's going on a trip to Costa Rica in a month or so and wanted to take a nice camera. I don't know shit about them and thought you might be able to tell if it's worth $600 or not to take pics of the stars and stuff (the one that comes with 2 lenses is cheaper for some reason).
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Have you considered buying a telescope and shooting with your DSLR attached to it? I know the premium for any decent optics down there will be steep but I'm fairly sure you'd take to it quickly.
Yes. Very much yes. For best results, though, I'd probably want something computer controlled, so that I could take long exposures and have the computer controlling the tracking. For looking into a telescope, your eyes might not notice the stars slowly moving across the sky. But when you're extremely zoomed in, that ever-so-slight movement is easily picked up by a lengthy exposure on a camera, so unless your telescope is also moving to follow the sky, you're likely to end up with a slightly blurred picture as whatever you're looking at most those factions of a degree across the view. Which really takes the whole prospect to an entirely new level of 'holy shit, that's expensive'.
But yeah. It's not unknown for me to get back from a night out and find myself looking at telescopes and shipping rates online before I even fall into bed. It's a dangerous hobby, this one. Often, 'the next step up' comes with another new expense - which is why I also tend to explore trying different techniques, such as light painting or star trails, which allow me to continue to explore and expand my abilities without any additional investment beyond what I already have at this time.
Thanks, Fishman! My wife actually linked me this camera because she's going on a trip to Costa Rica in a month or so and wanted to take a nice camera. I don't know shit about them and thought you might be able to tell if it's worth $600 or not to take pics of the stars and stuff (the one that comes with 2 lenses is cheaper for some reason).
That looks like a solid entry-level DSLR, roughly the Canon equivalent to what I started on. It's not the most recent model (I think it's a couple years old), but it's still perfectly useable and discounted nicely owing to more modern models (I think the current Canon is the T5i?) Hell, at 18 mega pixels, it's got a higher resolution and is two years newer than what I'm using now, so is probably quite comparable for all mine was a higher-end model at the time I bought it. The Rebel line has been a good entry point since they launched, and Canon has one of the best names in cameras (Nikon is also excellent, and Sony very close as well).
It's worth noting about half of what you pay for is quality of the lens. Good glass makes a huge difference to the quality of your photography, and though the two lens package is cheaper, I'd wager the glass is not as good. Getting a kit with a single lens won't give you the range that the 2-lens package has, but honestly, with a single lens to begin with, you won't have to worry about changing your lens and getting dust in your camera body, and if it's better quality, it'll mean you can hold off on upgrading your glass for a little while. Unless you have a serious interest in putting that longer telephoto to use (for instance, wildlife or other distant subjects), I'd probably recommend a good single lens over a cheaper 2-piece kit to begin with.
There's a few other points you might want to consider before putting your money down - for instance, when I first purchased a DSLR, I was initially going to buy a Canon, but then when I got to the store, I found it uncomfortable to hold in my hands for long periods, causing mild cramping even in a short period. The Sony, with near-identical performance, was much more comfortable to hold, and so I became a Sony user.
But this means I'm now stuck being a Sony user, because now that I have Sony lenses, I can't use them on Canons, so while I'm happy with what I have, I couldn't go out and buy a Canon without also ditching all my lenses and buying up Canon ones, which makes for an expensive switch. There's other things to consider, to, so maybe have a look over a DSLR buyers guide just to get an idea of roughly where you might be in terms of camera purchase and technology.
http://www.dpreview.com is pretty much my go-to source on digital cameras, although the level of information they provide, and the sheer amount of stuff on the site can be overwhelming, even to someone who is familiar with photography.
tl;dr : That's a pretty good camera at roughly the technology level I'd recommend, and I don't think you'd do to badly by buying it; it's discounted a bit because it's a bit older, but at only a couple years old it's still perfectly usable and should take decent astro photos.
Awesome, I'll check those links out and do some more reading on the subject. Thanks again for taking the time to talk about this stuff and answer my questions too!
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WeaverWho are you?What do you want?Registered Userregular
I just found this thread from Fishman's post in the travel thread -- here's a few astrophotography shots, though I really need to get out there and do some more.
First, the moon, because what the heck, the moon is always fun. (E-5, Tamron 400/4, horrific jpeg artifacts for some reason)
Then, as Chris mentioned, you can stack images to get better results, here's Jupiter (14 shots stacked, OM-D prime focused on an Orion XT8i, so not all that much magnification -- I'd like to try an eyepiece adapter but that starts to get really iffy for stability)
And, again, OM-D prime on XT8i with an equatorial platform underneath, Orion. (the platform lets me get 8 seconds with reasonable tracking, which is far from a long exposure, and you can already see I should have tweaked the speed a little bit more. However, it's definitely long enough to get the colours to show up):
I made a barn door mount and it worked surprisingly well for long-ish exposures at wider angle, but all those shots have the roofline of my house or the garage in them, the scenery is much less impressive than Fishman's.
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LuvTheMonkeyHigh Sierra SerenadeRegistered Userregular
Very nice! How do you feel about general observing with the XTi8? The main problem I have had with choosing a telescope is if GoTo/tracking functionality is needed, or if adjusting the telescope by hand is sufficient for enjoying visual observing.
Analysis paralysis is a bitch, and I have it bad right now.
Observing with it is just fine -- it can be irritating doing the initial alignment so that it knows where to go, because my back garden has trees and buildings that often block off a lot of the bright stars you'd use for setup, but once that's done it works very well. The most awkward thing is getting it lined up on the particular star that I'm using as a marker point, because what looks obviously "the bright one over there" with the eye suddenly turns into one spot among dozens when looking through the finder, and among hundreds when looking through the main eyepiece.
(very handy hint I saw somewhere -- take a laser pointer, point it _out_ through the finderscope eyepiece. It will then make a line into the sky wherever the finder is pointing, which makes the first rough alignment much easier. For finding planets, this is normally enough; for nebulae or dimmer things, I need to be more careful)
I don't think I'd want a telescope without _some_ sort of assistance -- push-to is not quite as easy as goto, but finding my way around completely manually based on charts and angles would (for me) be more trouble than it's worth, even if it is The Real Man's Way To Observe according to some people. Heck, you can always just not use the push-to feature if you want to tough it out, but you can't go the other way and fall back on a feature that you don't have. (I actually went even further in the wimpy direction and got the iPhone app and cable, which made alignment easier because now I can align on anything, not just a list of stars; because it has a "real" display, it can shows me on the phone where the telescope's pointing, which makes the whole navigation experience even easier. But without that, going up-a-bit left-a-bit up-a-little bit, etc, worked just fine and I could find nebulae and stuff.
So for the classic "beginner 8" dob", I'd definitely get the XT8i over the XT8 classic; looking at the prices on telescope.com, it's $639 -vs- $399, which is a sizeable increase but a lot less than moving up to something motorised like the Nexstars, where for the same amount of light the 8SE is ~$1200, which is an awful lot more.
One upside of a motorised mount is that it can track across the sky, rather than having to manually tweak the position (though it uses up batteries while doing so, so you'd want a mains adaptor if possible). But before I'd made my equatorial platform it was really not a big deal at all having to push a little bit every so often; a much bigger improvement for observing was putting a couple of milk crates out so that I could sit down, honestly; keeping my eye steady against the eyepiece makes much much more difference than keeping the view steady against the sky.
ummm, what else. The cheapest way to get a lot of light to see deep sky objects with is a big dobsonian, certainly; the Zhumell 8" is $369, and that's about as cheap as they get, but unless you already know your way around the sky very well, I would bet you will be much happier with some assistance finding things.
Oh, one other thing to consider is that dobsonians are really pretty big. You'll need to think about where to put it when you're not using it; even disassembled into tube and base, it's pretty big, and manhandling it outside is not heavy, but it can be awkward; any of the folded-optic types will be physically a lot more compact, which makes them much easier to store/get around.
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LuvTheMonkeyHigh Sierra SerenadeRegistered Userregular
I'm not too worried about star hopping on its face, but I do live in a metropolitan area and our skies are not the greatest. Having fewer visible targets will not make it easier. Mobility is a larger concern with my ankle still healing from my fracture/dislocation. Long term I don't expect any issues but I'll have bolts in for a bit longer and rehab after that.
My current thinking is basically that NexStar 8SE, though their new NexStar Evolution line is coming out. Built-in lithium battery, built-in WiFi for use with apps, improved drive train, and manual clutches for both altitude and azimuth. Problem is the NexStar Evolution 8 is $1,600 - doable, but not cheap.
I'm not too worried about star hopping on its face, but I do live in a metropolitan area and our skies are not the greatest. Having fewer visible targets will not make it easier.
I've been fairly surprised by how much I can see even though I'm also in the middle of some pretty bad light pollution; the atlas of light pollution has me as solidly in white, which is "yeah, there might be a moon up there, I suppose" sort of territory but in practise there are an awful awful lot of stars I can see, it's just the dimmer nebulae that are more awkward and it feels as if I could get those with more practise. (or by finding a place to view from without a streetlight and neighbor's porch lights to mess with my night vision). One of these nights I should load up my car and drive out somewhere darker, I guess.
Mobility is a larger concern with my ankle still healing from my fracture/dislocation. Long term I don't expect any issues but I'll have bolts in for a bit longer and rehab after that.
Then you don't want to be hauling a dob around, nope, because they are unwieldy and big.
My current thinking is basically that NexStar 8SE, though their new NexStar Evolution line is coming out. Built-in lithium battery, built-in WiFi for use with apps, improved drive train, and manual clutches for both altitude and azimuth. Problem is the NexStar Evolution 8 is $1,600 - doable, but not cheap.
Googling around, that looks like an awful lot of nice improvements over the previous model; release date is any day now, it appears, so you could just wait a few weeks and see what people think of it in reality. If nothing else, it should push the price of the current ones down, and you could put the savings towards eyepieces / filters / whatever.
Also, have you considered getting something smaller and cheaper to start with to do some sanity testing of your viewing site? The Astronomers Without Borders tabletop dob seems to be very highly rated as a starting point, and it's much less of a financial commitment. I'm tempted by one of these (or the non-US equivalent Skywatcher Heritage 130) as something I could put in the car without needing to plan too much.
I'm not too worried about star hopping on its face, but I do live in a metropolitan area and our skies are not the greatest. Having fewer visible targets will not make it easier. Mobility is a larger concern with my ankle still healing from my fracture/dislocation. Long term I don't expect any issues but I'll have bolts in for a bit longer and rehab after that.
My current thinking is basically that NexStar 8SE, though their new NexStar Evolution line is coming out. Built-in lithium battery, built-in WiFi for use with apps, improved drive train, and manual clutches for both altitude and azimuth. Problem is the NexStar Evolution 8 is $1,600 - doable, but not cheap.
As someone in a similar position (thought with a smaller budget :P), I'd probably buy an entry-level scope before splashing $1600 for a Schmidt-Cas. At least they're finally putting a decent battery in the GoTo, though.
I started with some decent 10x50 binos and am probably going to get the AWB scope (and a barlow) next and try to make a bracket to use my smartphone as a push-to finder. Should be interesting.
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WeaverWho are you?What do you want?Registered Userregular
All the important controls and such are on the middle panel right? The thought of putting life-saving functionality on a touchscreen is still kinda terrifying.
I just found this thread from Fishman's post in the travel thread -- here's a few astrophotography shots, though I really need to get out there and do some more.
First, the moon, because what the heck, the moon is always fun. (E-5, Tamron 400/4, horrific jpeg artifacts for some reason)
Then, as Chris mentioned, you can stack images to get better results, here's Jupiter (14 shots stacked, OM-D prime focused on an Orion XT8i, so not all that much magnification -- I'd like to try an eyepiece adapter but that starts to get really iffy for stability)
And, again, OM-D prime on XT8i with an equatorial platform underneath, Orion. (the platform lets me get 8 seconds with reasonable tracking, which is far from a long exposure, and you can already see I should have tweaked the speed a little bit more. However, it's definitely long enough to get the colours to show up):
I made a barn door mount and it worked surprisingly well for long-ish exposures at wider angle, but all those shots have the roofline of my house or the garage in them, the scenery is much less impressive than Fishman's.
Hey, you got my good side!
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Halos Nach TariffCan you blame me?I'm too famous.Registered Userregular
All the important controls and such are on the middle panel right? The thought of putting life-saving functionality on a touchscreen is still kinda terrifying.
Well, I mean, I'm no space engineer, or indeed any sort of engineer, but anything which would put the touch screens out of commission would also put a console full of buttons out too wouldn't it?
Astronomers announced today that they have discovered a new type of planet - a rocky world weighing 17 times as much as Earth. Theorists believed such a world couldn't form because anything so hefty would grab hydrogen gas as it grew and become a Jupiter-like gas giant. This planet, though, is all solids and much bigger than previously discovered "super-Earths," making it a "mega-Earth."
"We were very surprised when we realized what we had found," says astronomer Xavier Dumusque of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), who led the data analysis and made the discovery.
"This is the Godzilla of Earths!" adds CfA researcher Dimitar Sasselov, director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative. "But unlike the movie monster, Kepler-10c has positive implications for life."
What I found pretty awesome
The Kepler-10 system is about 11 billion years old, which means it formed less than 3 billion years after the Big Bang. This process should have taken billions of years. However, Kepler-10c shows that the universe was able to form such huge rocks even during the time when heavy elements were scarce.
That's not really an actual NASA image, right? I mean, I'm under the impression their resources are limited enough that there's not a lot of point in spending time 'designing' ships that don't even have a theoretically functioning design, unless someone figured out FTL while I wasn't looking.
I'm kind of guessing the 'disc' is only there to make it look like Star Trek. Edit: It even has a deflector dish.
Scooter on
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
No, the rings have to do with the Alcubierre-White warp drive. Or do you mean the flat bit at the front? That looks like it's probably the living quarters.
valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
Anyone ever think that one day, we'll have all this FTL stuff figured out, or at least ways to go much, much faster than we do now? And then someday, someone somewhere will decide to go find the Voyager spacecraft, then recover them after decades of searching, possibly as a reality show, then put it in a museum?
We'll never have the chance for Klingons to shoot it out of space.
NASA is researching a mission that would see the equivalent of a quadcopter supported by a balloon sent to Titan. The balloon would drop into Titan’s atmosphere without needing to land and would act as a base station. The quadcopter would launch from the balloon to visit locations, take pictures, and collect samples. It would then return to the balloon to recharge its batteries and have the data and samples it has collected analyzed by NASA back on Earth. The length of the mission would only be limited by how long the balloon could keep providing power to the quadcopter.
That's pretty fascinating but I wonder how well an automated quadcopter would be able to handle a turbulent atmosphere without crashing. (Though admittedly, I don't know how stable quadcopters are nor do I know how turbulent Titan's atmosphere is.)
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
Posts
You can get a much cheaper azimuth mount scope like this one: http://www.celestron.com/browse-shop/astronomy/telescopes/nexstar-6se-computerized-telescope and instead of taking one really long exposure shot like you can with an equatorial mount scope, you take like 30 photos and overlay them.
(I got Amy that exact scope to go with her EOS 60D last year and she hasn't used it once because she's scared of it.)
That looks like a solid entry-level DSLR, roughly the Canon equivalent to what I started on. It's not the most recent model (I think it's a couple years old), but it's still perfectly useable and discounted nicely owing to more modern models (I think the current Canon is the T5i?) Hell, at 18 mega pixels, it's got a higher resolution and is two years newer than what I'm using now, so is probably quite comparable for all mine was a higher-end model at the time I bought it. The Rebel line has been a good entry point since they launched, and Canon has one of the best names in cameras (Nikon is also excellent, and Sony very close as well).
It's worth noting about half of what you pay for is quality of the lens. Good glass makes a huge difference to the quality of your photography, and though the two lens package is cheaper, I'd wager the glass is not as good. Getting a kit with a single lens won't give you the range that the 2-lens package has, but honestly, with a single lens to begin with, you won't have to worry about changing your lens and getting dust in your camera body, and if it's better quality, it'll mean you can hold off on upgrading your glass for a little while. Unless you have a serious interest in putting that longer telephoto to use (for instance, wildlife or other distant subjects), I'd probably recommend a good single lens over a cheaper 2-piece kit to begin with.
There's a few other points you might want to consider before putting your money down - for instance, when I first purchased a DSLR, I was initially going to buy a Canon, but then when I got to the store, I found it uncomfortable to hold in my hands for long periods, causing mild cramping even in a short period. The Sony, with near-identical performance, was much more comfortable to hold, and so I became a Sony user.
But this means I'm now stuck being a Sony user, because now that I have Sony lenses, I can't use them on Canons, so while I'm happy with what I have, I couldn't go out and buy a Canon without also ditching all my lenses and buying up Canon ones, which makes for an expensive switch. There's other things to consider, to, so maybe have a look over a DSLR buyers guide just to get an idea of roughly where you might be in terms of camera purchase and technology.
http://www.dpreview.com is pretty much my go-to source on digital cameras, although the level of information they provide, and the sheer amount of stuff on the site can be overwhelming, even to someone who is familiar with photography.
tl;dr : That's a pretty good camera at roughly the technology level I'd recommend, and I don't think you'd do to badly by buying it; it's discounted a bit because it's a bit older, but at only a couple years old it's still perfectly usable and should take decent astro photos.
First, the moon, because what the heck, the moon is always fun. (E-5, Tamron 400/4, horrific jpeg artifacts for some reason)
Then, as Chris mentioned, you can stack images to get better results, here's Jupiter (14 shots stacked, OM-D prime focused on an Orion XT8i, so not all that much magnification -- I'd like to try an eyepiece adapter but that starts to get really iffy for stability)
And, again, OM-D prime on XT8i with an equatorial platform underneath, Orion. (the platform lets me get 8 seconds with reasonable tracking, which is far from a long exposure, and you can already see I should have tweaked the speed a little bit more. However, it's definitely long enough to get the colours to show up):
I made a barn door mount and it worked surprisingly well for long-ish exposures at wider angle, but all those shots have the roofline of my house or the garage in them, the scenery is much less impressive than Fishman's.
Analysis paralysis is a bitch, and I have it bad right now.
(very handy hint I saw somewhere -- take a laser pointer, point it _out_ through the finderscope eyepiece. It will then make a line into the sky wherever the finder is pointing, which makes the first rough alignment much easier. For finding planets, this is normally enough; for nebulae or dimmer things, I need to be more careful)
I don't think I'd want a telescope without _some_ sort of assistance -- push-to is not quite as easy as goto, but finding my way around completely manually based on charts and angles would (for me) be more trouble than it's worth, even if it is The Real Man's Way To Observe according to some people. Heck, you can always just not use the push-to feature if you want to tough it out, but you can't go the other way and fall back on a feature that you don't have. (I actually went even further in the wimpy direction and got the iPhone app and cable, which made alignment easier because now I can align on anything, not just a list of stars; because it has a "real" display, it can shows me on the phone where the telescope's pointing, which makes the whole navigation experience even easier. But without that, going up-a-bit left-a-bit up-a-little bit, etc, worked just fine and I could find nebulae and stuff.
So for the classic "beginner 8" dob", I'd definitely get the XT8i over the XT8 classic; looking at the prices on telescope.com, it's $639 -vs- $399, which is a sizeable increase but a lot less than moving up to something motorised like the Nexstars, where for the same amount of light the 8SE is ~$1200, which is an awful lot more.
One upside of a motorised mount is that it can track across the sky, rather than having to manually tweak the position (though it uses up batteries while doing so, so you'd want a mains adaptor if possible). But before I'd made my equatorial platform it was really not a big deal at all having to push a little bit every so often; a much bigger improvement for observing was putting a couple of milk crates out so that I could sit down, honestly; keeping my eye steady against the eyepiece makes much much more difference than keeping the view steady against the sky.
ummm, what else. The cheapest way to get a lot of light to see deep sky objects with is a big dobsonian, certainly; the Zhumell 8" is $369, and that's about as cheap as they get, but unless you already know your way around the sky very well, I would bet you will be much happier with some assistance finding things.
Oh, one other thing to consider is that dobsonians are really pretty big. You'll need to think about where to put it when you're not using it; even disassembled into tube and base, it's pretty big, and manhandling it outside is not heavy, but it can be awkward; any of the folded-optic types will be physically a lot more compact, which makes them much easier to store/get around.
My current thinking is basically that NexStar 8SE, though their new NexStar Evolution line is coming out. Built-in lithium battery, built-in WiFi for use with apps, improved drive train, and manual clutches for both altitude and azimuth. Problem is the NexStar Evolution 8 is $1,600 - doable, but not cheap.
Then you don't want to be hauling a dob around, nope, because they are unwieldy and big.
Googling around, that looks like an awful lot of nice improvements over the previous model; release date is any day now, it appears, so you could just wait a few weeks and see what people think of it in reality. If nothing else, it should push the price of the current ones down, and you could put the savings towards eyepieces / filters / whatever.
Also, have you considered getting something smaller and cheaper to start with to do some sanity testing of your viewing site? The Astronomers Without Borders tabletop dob seems to be very highly rated as a starting point, and it's much less of a financial commitment. I'm tempted by one of these (or the non-US equivalent Skywatcher Heritage 130) as something I could put in the car without needing to plan too much.
http://new.livestream.com/spacex/DragonV2/videos/52348399
As someone in a similar position (thought with a smaller budget :P), I'd probably buy an entry-level scope before splashing $1600 for a Schmidt-Cas. At least they're finally putting a decent battery in the GoTo, though.
I started with some decent 10x50 binos and am probably going to get the AWB scope (and a barlow) next and try to make a bracket to use my smartphone as a push-to finder. Should be interesting.
Hey, you got my good side!
Well, I mean, I'm no space engineer, or indeed any sort of engineer, but anything which would put the touch screens out of commission would also put a console full of buttons out too wouldn't it?
What I found pretty awesome
NASA's current design for their FTL ship
I'm kind of guessing the 'disc' is only there to make it look like Star Trek. Edit: It even has a deflector dish.
Also, without some massive discoveries to the contrary, FTL is impossible.
But if all we need is the mass of jupiter then I guess it's just impossible in practice rather than theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
We'll never have the chance for Klingons to shoot it out of space.
the ISS
There have been so many failed space ventures that it's good to see one that has come to fruition.