Swapped a 6-inch telescope for a cheap DSLR after seeing the Orion Nebula shot from my buddy's setup

I always thought astrophotography needed expensive gear until I borrowed his old Canon and got a decent shot of the Milky Way from my backyard in just two tries, anyone else ditch their eyepiece for a camera sensor?

3 comments

3 Comments

kai_ramirez387d ago

Dude I bought a $300 telescope and all I got was a blurry dot that might have been Jupiter lmao. The camera route sounds way less painful for my ego.

garcia.cameron7d agoProlific Poster

Wait, does that mean your telescope is basically a really expensive blurry lens that makes everything look like it was painted by a toddler who ate too much sugar? I feel your pain though, my first try at astrophotography looked like I took a picture of a streetlight through a wet sock. Then I spent like $400 on a used DSLR and adapter, and my first shot of the moon looked like a fuzzy cheese wheel that got dropped on the floor. But then I messed with the settings and got a halfway decent one where you could actually see craters, and I felt like Einstein for a solid ten minutes. The camera route definitely has a steeper learning curve but at least if it's blurry you can just blame the clouds or your shaky hands instead of the gear.

michael8036d ago

My buddy tried a $200 telescope and spent a whole night convinced he was looking at Saturn's rings, turned out it was just a weird reflection off his neighbor's gutter. Is it really astronomy if you can't blame half your results on random backyard junk?