Attaching a F mount lens to an Astro Camera | Astrobiscuit | Page 1

shadow zephyr May 17, 2024, 8:55 PM

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Hi All,

I'm still rater new to astrophotography & have been using the f mount lenes that I already own on my d7200. I use all AI/ AI-s manual focus 20-400mm prime lenes. So far its been working great with my camera but I got the itch to have a dedicated astro camera. In particular I am looking at either the ASI715MC or the QHY QHY5III715C planatery cameras for DSOs. The 1.45 micron pixle size is really fanicating to me, it looks like it'll give some great resoloution out of the shorter focal lengths that I use.

Would you all have anyidea what I'd need to buy to mount these cameras to my F mount lenes? I know that I need 46.5 mm of back spacing, and ideally a filter drawer somewhere in there would be great too.

bright swan May 17, 2024, 9:03 PM

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I wouldn't use a camera with such small pixels, minimum a 585 sensor Imo

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the 715 shines in planetary tho

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but there are adapters that go from the F mount to m48 if you really want to try

shadow zephyr May 17, 2024, 9:07 PM

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Thanks for the feedback, I'm still learning here, why would the smaller pixle size be a source of concern? It seems that for the focal lengths that I intend on using it with <400 the sampling raito all seems to be ideal

bright swan May 17, 2024, 9:12 PM

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well consider that the sampling is really small, maybe too small, and the resolution isn't high enough to give you a decent fov to play with. Small pixels are also "less sensitive" as in the tracking needs to be on point to avoid e.g. the light from a star to move on the adjacent pixel and causing oblong stars, maybe trails, etc

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you can see the fov with the 715, 585 and 533 here, while it can look like the small fov is good beacuse it seems more zoomed in, it's not that fun to deal with

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it's one of those "it's not impossible but I can't recommend it" kind of thing

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and if I can be honest, the only version of the 715 that could be attached via extensions is the zwo and it's incredibly overpriced

shadow zephyr May 17, 2024, 11:00 PM

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thanks for the feedback, I didn't thinking about the tracking accuracty needed on the smaller pixles & the fraiming could be a pain in the ass.

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I do it manually with a Skyguider pro and platsolving with Nina, so spending all night fraiming up a traget does seem like a pain

shadow zephyr May 27, 2024, 9:23 PM

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@bright swan Sorry to bug you agian, but I appricated your insight last time. Would you have any advise on wither its worth it to buy once and cry once in moving to a mono camera? The use-case is for a Bortle 7/8 backyard. I'd like to just buy once, but the price of a mono w/ filters and wheel is about 2x the price of a OSC. Im leaning towards a OSC and building a pier/ small obsvatory with the savings so that I can just get more integration time overall.

bright swan May 27, 2024, 9:26 PM

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Mono is definitely the best way to go in high bortle areas but yeah the price is steep. It depends on what brand you're buying too, you can save a lot by buying stuff from touptek or player-one

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Part of me wants to say that if you have limited clear skies the osc is "quicker" in acquiring all the channels but when comparing 3h of osc vs 3 of mono rgb the mono camera will easily win

shadow zephyr May 27, 2024, 9:30 PM

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Fortuantly limited clear sky's isn't a problem here. Tucson is rather forgiving as far as clear skies go. I guess I'll start saving thoese pennies. Thanks for the recomedation on touptek I haven't heard of them yet.

#Attaching a F mount lens to an Astro Camera