Astrophotography with the Super-Takumar

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Dangerous_Dave

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Dave
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Hi folks, I thought I'd post a few shots to extol the virtues of my Asahi Super Takumar primes, possibly the best value for money astro lenses I have come across. Despite costing me a bargain 30-40 quid each on ebay, they easily outshine my Sigma and Zenitar lenses for astronomical use (the less said about the old EF-S 18-55 the better). There's no auto-focus or anything else clever, but astrophotography is always done the manual way!

Orion

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EOS20D + Takumar 28mm/f2.8 at f2.8, 2x5 minute shots at ISO800, stacked

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Belt and sword of Orion

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EOS20D + Takumar 135mm/f3.5 at f3.5, 37x2 minute shots at ISO800, stacked

(hotshot of the month, March 2009 Sky at Night magazine)

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IC1318 Gamma Cygni region

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EOS20D, Takumar 200mm/f4 lens at f4, Astronomik 13nm H-a clip filter, 18x10 minutes at ISO800, stacked


IC1396 Elephant's Trunk region in Cepheus

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EOS20D, Takumar 135mm/f3.5 lens at f3.5, Astronomik H-alpha 13nm clip filter, 18x7mins at ISO800, stacked

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Waning Moon

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EOS300D, Takumar 200mm/f4 lens at f4, Hanimex 2x Teleconverter, c.20 exposures at ISO400, stacked and sharpened

The family

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Front: 28mm/f3.5
Middle: 135mm/f3.5
Back: 200mm/f4.0

Hope you approve.
 
As has been said on these elsewhere, absolutely stunning images, and it's good to see the kit used to collect the data too.
 
As a complete beginner to all this I have to say a big thank you for describing what gear and setup you used to take these. I'd thought astrophotography like this was completely beyond any setup I could hope for.

These shots are great and hopefully in the next few years I can try some of my own. :)
 
Fantastic images :clap:

And, a really great insight as to the equipment used.

Very tempting to get out and have a go :thinking:

Neil
 
Thanks for the comments guys. I would hasten to add, for long exposure photography, that it's important to mount your camera on something that will track the stars. The moon shot was taken from my un-tracked 055XB tripod, but the long-exposure shots were mounted on my equatorial telescope mount which was accurately polar aligned and tracking at sidereal rate.

The Astrotrac is a light, accurate tracker unit that will fit on any tripod with 3/8" bolt, although somewhat pricey. Alternatively, Vixen make small accurate mounts like the GP-2 which are somewhat cheaper, ship with their own tripod, but less portable. Most small telescope mounts take a Vixen/Synta dovetail fitting, so it's a simple job to get hold of one of these dovetail bars (cost about £10-20 from astro stockists), and attach a tripod head to it with a 3/8" bolt.

Here's the 20D and Takumar 200/f4.0 mounted piggy-back on my telescope.

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D
 
Thanks for sharing. I'm getting in to astrophography (just for fun) and always notice the star trails even on a 30/25 sec exposure, this makes them look slightly out of focus because they have moved the tiniest fraction. I might take your advice and save up for a telescope and mount the camera piggy back.
 
Dangerous_Dave said:
Hi folks, I thought I'd post a few shots to extol the virtues of my Asahi Super Takumar primes, possibly the best value for money astro lenses I have come across. Despite costing me a bargain 30-40 quid each on ebay, they easily outshine my Sigma and Zenitar lenses for astronomical use (the less said about the old EF-S 18-55 the better). There's no auto-focus or anything else clever, but astrophotography is always done the manual way!


Hope you approve.
Click to expand...

jgs001 said:
As has been said on these elsewhere, absolutely stunning images, and it's good to see the kit used to collect the data too.
Click to expand...

I thought you two might get on very well together :D

AMAZING set of images :clap:
I'm very keen to know more about your lens's..... ;)
 
Those are amazing photos. Well done. It's impossible to pick a favourite because they are all so good
 
me again! looking at these lenses on ebay, i'm really tempted to invest. I was previously looking at the canon 28mm 2.8 for a wide angle look at the sky, but that Takumar seems much better and a fraction of the cost. Did you buy an adapter for the mount? or do they fit canon?
 
paleblue said:
me again! looking at these lenses on ebay, i'm really tempted to invest. I was previously looking at the canon 28mm 2.8 for a wide angle look at the sky, but that Takumar seems much better and a fraction of the cost. Did you buy an adapter for the mount? or do they fit canon?
Click to expand...

They're just the old Pentax M42 screw fitting. You can buy EOS:M42 adaptors for ~5 quid on ebay, that's what I use to connect mine to the 20D. You have to use them fully manual, but that's no big deal for astrophotography.

The Takumar 6x7 large format lenses are very highly rated for astro work on account of the flat field, but they're considerably pricier, as is the EOS adaptor for these. If you're using an APS-C camera, most coma is off-sensor anyway.

I'm sure there are better lenses out there, but not at the price you can pick these up on ebay. I've tried inexpensive, modern zoom lenses for astrophotography and had all sorts of aberrations, seagull shaped stars etc.:thumbsdown:
 
willbaroo said:
I presume you aim the camera and hope for the best....
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With astrophotography there is a certain amount of "hoping" with your first shot of any target, but with experience you develop a pretty good idea of what length exposure you need for what sort of target. I tend to take a couple of test shots to assess the length of the exposure before starting the run (~12-20 sub exposures depending on exposure length, object brightness etc). If you're stacking shots you do have a bit of leeway to rescue a shot in post processing.
 
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