Astrophotography with converted S5

[RBecker]

I used my old Canon EOS5DII (converted for Astro) for several years for astrophotography. But this camera is a DSLR with bad live view and no flippy screen, so focus manually could be a pain in the ass.

After a good deal for a Lumix S5II I decided to retire my Canon and modify my S5 (I). Actually there is only one company in Germany to offer such a service and it was not cheap, but they did a great job and everything works fine.

Astro Filter: Photographing stars at night with a modified camera | IRreCams

The H-alpha sensitivity of digital cameras can be improved by modifying them with an Astro filter. An Astro modification brings many advantages.

irrecams.de

One of the first results after a long period of bad weather and no time (business trips) was a first test with the rosette nebula from my balcony. Even living in a small village the light situation is not good, the maximum exposure time is quite restricted.

I took 120 pictures with 30sec exposure time each, ISO 1600, no darks, no bias, no flats!
Lens: Askar FRA500 (500mm/f5.6)
Pictures stacked with SIRIL, final work with Photoshop
Reduced in size and crop to go with 1600px for this forum, original file is 30x45cm with 300 dpi

 

[Oíche]

Hey, you sure you didn't borrow that from James Webb Soace Telescope?

Yeah that filtration on the sensor works wonders, I'm not a proper astro-photographer to get conversions done. I'm more generic astro-landscaper... MW and Aurora etc. I did astrophysics at the OU and was pretty sick of it after the research, used a remote telescope in Mallorca for photometry, was 90% clouded out so no time for fun astro photos as time is booked on all these telescopes.

Great to see proper astro being posted about here at last, I love the images. I still have a decent interest in all this stuff but not to pHD level as a few classmates went on to achieve.

 

[RBecker]

I studied physics and did my diploma at the institute of astronomy also with photometry (with an ST6 and ST7 at that time)!
But after that there where no jobs at that time in this direction (even not in physics) and so I began to work in IT...

But the problems today are still the same: If you have time, then you get bad weather. If the weather is great you are on business trips or you have no time for other reasons...

 

[Oíche]

This... 17" PIRATE telescope and I see they moved to Tenerife, maybe a different scope.