Best digital camera for astrophotography? (1 Viewer)

Having gained a significant interest in photographing the night sky, I've encountered the limitations of my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ4: it can only go up to 8 seconds as a maximum exposure time. I love my FZ4, and it's more than sufficient for daytime photos, but I wouldn't mind purchasing another camera exclusively for astrophotography, namely stars and comets, with more significant interest in the latter.

Most importantly, I'd love to find one that's affordable, but offers bang for your buck. I thought about the upcoming Lumix FZ18, though it's expensive, no doubt due to the amount of features, but I wouldn't need those features for photographing the night sky anyway. Many of them are for daylight situations, and my FZ4 already fulfills that need.

I know this isn't really related to technique, but I didn't know which brand name I'd put it under, since I'm not looking for a specific brand, just a camera that will work for what I want to do.|=)|

You want something that has low noise and allows you to choose exposure times up to a minute or two, though if you're handy with the image processing programs you can achieve the same thing by averaging several somewhat shorter exposures. Panasonics tend to be a bit on the noisy side.

A lot of people are using a web cam for this, one in particular by Philips, can't recall model No, but go to telescopes-astronomy.com.au, you will find info there. Ernie

Mount my D70 & D200 using a T2 adapter on my scope, still learning, D200 better as it has mirror lockup but easily resolved on the D70 with a bit of black cloth............
Long exposures not an issue cos I have no drive so its gotta be short n sweet.
Focusing is an art as its not as easy as people think as is the problem of camera shake which is my biggest problem on an astronomical telescope. Probably better taking all the junk off and mounting the tube n mirror directly on my benbo tripod.

Can any of you recommend a specific brand that has low noise(even at a relatively high ISO)? If I could narrow my choices to one reputable brand, it would make deciding on one much easier.

Hard to recommend a specific brand/body, but if you stick to Canon/Nikon DSLRs, you will probably get the best bang for your buck IMO. Personally, I wouldn't consider anything else. As said before, you want the best high ISO performance you can get, especially if you are trying to shoot comets, and as far as I can see, Canon and Nikon lead the way here.

Live view is one useful feature you might want to look out for (makes focusing much easier), apart from that, and ISO performance, the various bodies on offer at the moment are more or less equally suitable for astrophotography.

One other thing to look out for, is the potential of a specific body/sensor to exhibit "amp-glow", which looks like a red fog, and becomes more troublesome the longer your exposure. Taking "dark frames" can combat and eliminate this, but it's better to get a body that's less prone to amp-glow in the first place IMO. Having to take/use dark frames even for shorter exposures is a real pain. You will probably have to take them for longer exposures anyway.

Most comets are fairly faint, and you want all the light gathering ability you can get, so if you are serious about shooting them, you will also have to budget for a fast lens too - the faster the better. Depending on the comet, lenses anywhere between 35-200mm might be appropriate in a given situation, and prime lenses are the way to go. The alternative is to acquire an equatorial mount (or a "barn-door" mount for an even cheaper alternative), which will let you make a long exposure without the comet "moving"

I'm not saying you can't get comet photos with slower and/or prime lenses, but you will get better results if you go this route. It depends how serious you are about getting the best comet photos you can, and what your budget is.

Feel free to PM me if I can help further.

The 20Da from canon is the only dslr that has been made for astrophotography as it has the low pass filter removed so it gets better night light but its not very good for normal photography unless you get a filter for the lens you use in normal light

666taz said:

The 20Da from canon is the only dslr that has been made for astrophotography as it has the low pass filter removed so it gets better night light but its not very good for normal photography unless you get a filter for the lens you use in normal light

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It's also out of production, and probably quite hard to find on the second hand market. I suspect it would command quite a high price because of this. Worth having for sure, if you like to shoot stars, and can find one for a good price!

I just stumbled across this thread here, which has some great info: http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/617938