Astrophotography on a budget: Sony NEX C3

[Fumesucker]

I got my used NEX C3 a couple of days ago from Adorama, under $130 including shipping for the camera, 18-55 kit lens, attachable flash, battery, charger and original box/packing. The camera isn't pristine but it's in decent shape, mostly the LCD screen is somewhat the worse for wear, scratched some and the black surround on the clear plastic is looking rather rough.

So I tried it out last night with the kit lens set at 35mm and f4.5 (wide open at that focal length), the lens isn't particularly good for astrophotography but I didn't expect it to be, the camera on the other hand is brilliant for this purpose. There is a self timer setting that gives you a ten second delay and then takes five images in a row at whatever time exposure you set, in my case I used 30 seconds which is the max the camera will do on its own so I was getting 5 x 30 seconds for two and a half minutes per shutter button press. I tried different ISO settings and eventually settled on 800 as being optimum for my sky conditions f# and exposure length, if I was under darker skies I would go with 1600 probably though. I had the camera mounted on my small equatorial tracking mount so it followed the stars for no trailing, without the mount I could probably have gone for 10 second exposures while keeping the trailing to a minimum, 1600 ISO would work for that too. Long exposure noise reduction was turned off and I didn't take any dark or flat frames which would have improved the final image some. I just wanted to see how it would work without a lot of rigmarole..

Anyhow, here is the result of 55 x 30 second exposures @ ISO 800 registered and stacked in the freeware Deep Sky Stacker and then further processed in Iris (to remove the light pollution gradient) and Paint Shop Pro (curves, cropping and so forth)... Both the Orion nebula and the Running Man nebula right above it show up nicely and you can even see the Flame nebula just to the left of the leftmost star in Orion's belt. When I get an adapter for some of my prime lenses that are a lot sharper than the kit lens this camera is going to do very well indeed, the flange distance on the NEX is so short practically any lens in the history of photography can be adapted to it and there are adapters available for a lot of lenses now, you have to use them in manual mode but that's not an issue for this sort of photography.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. That is wonderful!

Good for you.

Happy astrophotography!

[Fumesucker]

2. Thanks, more than anything I'm surprised at how easy and affordable it's become

The kinds of pictures amateurs are getting now with modest equipment kluged together from bits and pieces was beyond professional observatories back when I first got interested in astronomy. It's kind of ironic that as our ability to see the universe beyond our planet has improved by leaps and bounds we have blocked out much of the night sky with artificial lights.

It's also really subjective, I can take the same shots and run them through the processing chain a little differently and get very different looking results, I already have a better one than I posted from the shots I took last night. I think I've said it here before but even the Hubble images don't look like much until they are processed and the actual science shots rather than the PR pretty pictures shots can be downright ugly.

[rdking647]

3. ive been doing a little astrophotography too

i live in a light polluted area so i have to expose to the right. havent tried any exposure stacking,i have a mac and it seems like all the stacking programs are pc only

[Fumesucker]

4. You don't really need much of a PC by modern standards to stack images..

A $50 Craigslist or Ebay laptop running XP will do it, albeit slowly.

On the other hand here's a site that purports to have DSS running on a Mac and tells you how to do it.

http://blog.tom-goetz.org/2013/01/running-deepskystacker-for-windows-on.html

What kind of equipment are you using? I have a 4.5" newtonian but no way to attach the camera short of a whole new focuser and the optics aren't worthy of putting that much time in it for results that would be mediocre at best.

It turns out I got Lovejoy again with the NEX last night also..

I thought I had borked the settings so badly I couldn't salvage anything but I found a way around it..

[rdking647]

7. i use either a sony a6000 or nikon d600

with assorted lenses. no clock drive so i use the rule of 600 to prevent star trails

[alfredo]

5. I think you can stack in GIMP.

[juxtaposed]

6. these are really nice, thanks for posting all the info too

[belcffub]

8. I use StarStax from time to time

very cool... I might have to give it a go... I have used it to create star trails... and firefly trails (they are really cool)

[Fumesucker]

9. That's quite a picture, I"m impressed

Gave me some ideas, thanks for posting.

[belcffub]

10. glad you enjoyed it...

thats a three hour time-lapse using StarStax to process things...

then I take the photos and do some masking and turn them into a video