Nikon D7000 for Astrophotography

[Mike]

I did a 5 minute exposure yesterday with the lens cap on and apart from a few hot pixels nothing else showed up at all.

[Mac]

Just a thought,
Nikon use the IR sensor to measure the EXACT speed of the shutter so that the shutter module can calibrate itself.

There is no speed measurement on Bulb, so it might actually turn it off.

I'll have to test my D3 and see.

Fingers crossed they release an updated firmware for the D3 regarding the noise removal.

Mac.

[MarkS]

There is no speed measurement on Bulb, so it might actually turn it off.

Interesting point - it could well be the case ...

[Mike]

Just an update on using my Nikon D7000 for astrophotography.

I have now purchased an intervalometer. It cost £14 on eBay (that is not my hand) :-



I also found some control software called 'Control My Nikon' which was £15 and is similar to APT in some ways. I can do live viewing on the full screen and control exposure, etc. it also automatically downloads any images taken with the intervalometer. So with both of these items I can now focus the Nikon properly and have automated control for long exposures.

Now all I need is a clear night to test it out.

[RobertM]

Looking interesting... http://www.lifepixel.com/infrared-filters-choices

[Mike]

Yes I was looking at that yesterday. They do an astro conversion too. However I did buy this camera specifically for terrestrial imaging so don't have any intention of getting it modded.

Maybe if it turns out to be a nice camera to use unmodded I may consider buying another body and having that converted in the future. However, if I was going to spend that kind of money i'd rather pay a bit more and get a decent high resolution cooled astro-cam.

[mickw]

Certainly looks promising Mike

[Carole]

It will be interesting to see how this performs Mike. 

I agree with you about the Live view on the Canon, it only sees the brightest magnitude stars, so I tend to do my focus on one of my alignment stars and that works, but it's pretty hopeless for anything else except M42 where you can actually see enough to centre the object.  I got quite a surprise when I used my Atik for the first time at how much more I could see.

I've also got one of those remote controllers, I used it in Iceland, but I find it rather piddly to try to programme and difficult in the dark, but I guess practice will make perfect, but it certainly works OK once you've programmed it.

Will watch the progress.

Carole