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Moon with XSi

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RicksAstro

RicksAstro

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Was able to play around a little with the Telescope tonight to see if the extra pixels would be useful for scope shots. Definitely a very nice camera!

1/320s, f5.4, ISO200
540mm Telescope (NP-101)
100% crop!
Curves adjusted, USM of radius 0.5, 100%

 
That is the XSi moon image I've been waiting for. My XTi shows noticeable noise in the bland maria areas under such shooting conditions, and your image is very smooth looking, even at 100%.

It is perhaps just a bit over sharpened. The very small, bright craters have clipped and become highlight "sparkles" and there is a bright halo around the limb of the moon. On the other hand, there is tremendous detail to see. And the dynamic range looks great, I think noticeably better than the XTi.

I was a bit disappointed with the XTi noise performance relative to the XT in such difficult conditions, and it looks to me like the XSi is a winner. It seems they actually managed to give the resolution a small bump and still improv the noise performance over the XTi.

(and I envy your telescope too!)

--
Dan
 
I did sharpen more than I normally do...it usually plays better on non-astro forums.

I did no noise reduction whatsoever, so WYSIWYG.

I normally take a larger series of images...tonight I only took 3 since I just got the camera today, and all were about the same. I used spot metering and liveview focusing, both unavailable on the XTi...perfect application for both! Seeing was pretty good, which helped.

The noise is great and IMO a little better than the XTI (which I had at one point). The High ISO noise reduction reduces chroma noise in all ISOs with really no sacrifice to luminance detail...I tend to leave it on by default.

It can AF a lens (Sigma 150 f2.8) on bright stars (as other Canons can), but I was disappointed that the contrast AF really doesn't work with stars. No deal breaker, but I thought it might be a cool feature. PC remote liveview is very cool with lenses...you can tweak focus manually from the PC on a live image...very cool!

As mentioned in another thread, this is the first Canon I've owned that shows a full res crop with image playback magnified...no fuzziness! A very pleasant surprise!

Rick
Dan Finnerty said:
That is the XSi moon image I've been waiting for. My XTi shows
noticeable noise in the bland maria areas under such shooting
conditions, and your image is very smooth looking, even at 100%.

It is perhaps just a bit over sharpened. The very small, bright
craters have clipped and become highlight "sparkles" and there is a
bright halo around the limb of the moon. On the other hand, there is
tremendous detail to see. And the dynamic range looks great, I think
noticeably better than the XTi.

I was a bit disappointed with the XTi noise performance relative to
the XT in such difficult conditions, and it looks to me like the XSi
is a winner. It seems they actually managed to give the resolution a
small bump and still improv the noise performance over the XTi.

(and I envy your telescope too!)

--
Dan
Click to expand...
 
Wouldn't those results be dependent more on the lens (in this case your telescope) than the camera? I mean, if comparing results from the XT, XTi or XSi?
How about a side by side of the XTi and XSi using the same set up?

--
  • Chris G.
 
Great shot as usual Rick.

How was the camera mounted to the telescope?

----------------------------
Ex-Tee-Eye * Fifty mm 1,8 * seventeen-eightyfive mm 4,0-5,6
 
--
Best regards, swnw.
 
I was avoiding thinking about upgrading to the XSi, but between the very acceptable noise performance, the live view ability to focus on stars (and city lights I presume), and the capability to zoom in at full-res "100% crop" to verify focus, I'm sold. That last feature has been on my top features wish list since I first used a digital camera!

Getting precise focus at night (and sometimes during the day in difficult conditions) has been one of my greatest (few) disappointments with the Dxxx series of camera. Perhaps Canon should market the XSi as the Night Stalker...

For those who want P&S-style live view, well there are other options (like Sony). For my money, this is an invaluable feature for a class of technically difficult photographic situations and fills an important gap in capability. Not that fast-focus live view has no purpose (I can see news photographers and the like finding that invaluable), but that is not a priority for me personally.
--
Dan
 
Like all images, Glass plays a large part of the equation.

But as I mentioned in my post, I was looking to see if the noise was good at full 100% resolution, as well as checking out the dynamic range...the moon's a good test subject for both of these things.

Rick
cgripp said:
Wouldn't those results be dependent more on the lens (in this case
your telescope) than the camera? I mean, if comparing results from
the XT, XTi or XSi?
How about a side by side of the XTi and XSi using the same set up?

--
  • Chris G.
Click to expand...
 
To be clear, I've always been able to use traditional phase detection AF with other cameras on the brightest stars and this still works with the XSi.

The XSi specific liveview contrast detection AF did NOT work with stars. In fact, the manual states it doesn't work well with point sources. I was hoping it would work so I could AF on any random location on the screen.

But manual focus is very effective using live view. And using remote PC liveview, you can manual focus camera lenses directly from the PC, which can be handy.

Rick
Dan Finnerty said:
I was avoiding thinking about upgrading to the XSi, but between the
very acceptable noise performance, the live view ability to focus on
stars (and city lights I presume), and the capability to zoom in at
full-res "100% crop" to verify focus, I'm sold. That last feature
has been on my top features wish list since I first used a digital
camera!
Click to expand...
 
I did the same thing, picked up the XSi yesterday and photographed the moon. Didn't feel like hauling out the telescope so had to settle for the 600mm f/4 with the 2x and 1.4x TCs stacked. At that magnification the moon moves so quickly it was hard to get shots to stack so I had to use just one of my exposures.

 
Excellent!

That's probably more like what mine actually looked like brightness-wise. I processed it darker to emphasize the contrast a bit more.

Yours was at more than 3x the focal length of mine...I bet it would move quickly! I had a lot or room on the sensor for it to move.

Hey, I think Moon pictures are more popular than Dogs and Cats for the XSi!!!!

Rick
thedigitalbean said:
I did the same thing, picked up the XSi yesterday and photographed
the moon. Didn't feel like hauling out the telescope so had to
settle for the 600mm f/4 with the 2x and 1.4x TCs stacked. At that
magnification the moon moves so quickly it was hard to get shots to
stack so I had to use just one of my exposures.
Click to expand...
 
THanks!

It's a Televue NP101 (and yes, it's expensive). It's a great Astrophot scope with fanastic color correction and a flat field.

A lens like the 400 f5.6 with a 1.4 TC would do a great job as well...would give about the same effective focal length (540 vs. 560) and is a fantastic lens...plus it can AF and be used for birds.

I use a standard EOS T adapter and a 2" T thread nosepiece threaded to it and just put the camera in place of an eyepiece.

RIck
71Flynner said:
That looks amazing!! Great job.

What telescope is that and how do you attach your camera to it? Is it
expensive? What lens is best?
I have a Canon 40d.

James
Click to expand...
 
RicksAstro said:
The camera was mounted to a standard EOS T adapter with a 2"
nosepiece on it to slide into the scope.
Click to expand...
Thanks Rick. You made me do some reading on the subject. From what I understand you mounted a lens-less camera straight to the telescope without an eyepiece inbetween right?

I have a Meade LX90 and a Celestron C5, they have pretty big focal lenghts which if I understand this right results in a very low angle of view which means not the whole moon would not fit in the frame.

What kind of field of view do you get with the Televue and the 450? Is there any chance you could post a very small version of the uncropped image?

----------------------------
Ex-Tee-Eye * Fifty mm 1,8 * seventeen-eightyfive mm 4,0-5,6
 
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