Ferguson

Beautiful. Do you mind if I ask: Did you do an HDR combine or just let integration blend the two exposures? This is just cheating.  ;-) Put up some floodlights and learn how the rest of us live! Li ...

I'd offer the suggestion if the lens is small enough it doesn't have an attach point, for sports (as opposed to some low shutter speed settings), you are probably better off holding it in your ...

You don't need advice, just try it.  Buy a monopod first.  Screw the lens directly to it.  Shoot a bit at the same angles you would at a game. For some types of shooting you may need a lot of ...

While there are exceptions, if guiding with stills (e.g. PHD2), and even a modest guide scope (e.g. 50-60mm aperture) almost anywhere you point in the sky will have a star you can use.  It is not ...

+1. Night soccer is tough unless you have really exceptional lighting.  You will need the F2.8. Daytime the 80-400G is a really good choice, but largely useless at night if you want quality ...

You lose auto-focus (and focus in general is awkward comparatively), you loose any kind of aperture control.  Depending on the refractor and size of sensor you may have really soft edges as many ...

Hmmm... there's plenty of room for a slide-off dome on top of that one.  One motor home for the observatory, one for living.  :-) Though I've known people who fly fish before... you might already ...

And the wife... she will love that you stay up all night, and sleep during the daytime (or post process if you happen to be awake). Sure she will.  ;-) So be sure to buy her a telescope, or at ...

Absolutely. And for landscape photography you are there for nice landscapes. The goal of most astrophotographers is to be asleep during the image capture, and spend 100% of their human time on post ...

Front and back feel the same on mine.  Maybe blow out with a bit of air in case some dirt is in it, otherwise send it back.

Sony A9ii.  I first tried the Edge GPS app, connecting alternatively to one camera then the other letting it set the clock.  Time was way off, the charge to the basket occurred well after the dunk! ...

I tried that once and it's not nearly accurate enough if you are shooting with two bodies and want the resulting shots in order. I've found the idea of just hitting enter on date/time on both works ...

I think the main area in which it is useful to emphasize the differences may be in the choice whether to BIN or not, not CCD vs CMOS. If I did shoot CCD I might be more inclined to BIN since I ...

I'm sorry, I worded that badly.  My point was this seemed to leave the impression that software vs hardware binning were the same.  At least it did when I read it, though it does clarify at the ...

I think that's misleading if by hardware binning you mean CCD (vs CMOS). With CCD binning at 2x2 you get the same read noise as 1x1; CCD's can read binned with the same read noise as unbinned. With ...

It is the Sony 400/2.8 GM lens.  It is not a lens one buys casually, I got it for night field sports where it excels. Trying it in Astro was because I already had it. I would certainly not ...

Not really. The A7Riv is brand new and a bit pricey and I want to make sure it continues working. It also has IBIS which is reportedly a bit fragile (Lensrentals reports several with broken ...

it's from the aperture blades, see here: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/547028-anyone-know-what-causes-this-artifact-on-bright-stars/ Notably toward the end.  I got them on my 400/2.8 also, ...

I don't want to step into the rest of this argument but I will offer a bit of insight here. I shoot sony, and have a wonderful 400/2.8 lens as well as a full frame camera. I love Sony, landed ...

Well, it is worth looking up the specs on whatever camera you want to do, it is always better to have lower noise and higher quantum efficiency.  Small differences really do not matter, but if you ...