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hi everyone this is Trevor Jones from

Astro backyard comm and in this video

I'm going to photograph a nebula in the

night sky in my backyard tonight using

this rig here this camera can be found

on eBay for under 200 dollars even 150

it's an old DSLR from 2011 and will work

just fine for capturing deep sky Astro

photography with a camera lens like this

it may sound unbelievable when you

consider all the expensive dedicated

astronomy cameras that have come out in

the last 10 years but this old DSLR is

capable of capturing incredible images

of the night sky as you can see here

I've got a Rokinon one 35 millimeter f/2

lens attached to the camera it's sitting

on a star tracker mountain the sky

watchers star adventurer but this is

essentially the exact rig I'm going to

be using in the backyard with a few more

accessories that do heater van and a

remote shutter release cable the reason

I wanted to make this video is because

people get hung up in the fact that

Astro photography is really expensive

but really with a simple rig like this

I'm going to prove to you that from an

ordinary backyard in the city you can

get astonishing results

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you can find this camera on eBay for

under $200 here's a few examples I found

close to the 150 range some of them even

come with lenses the only difference

between that one and the version you see

here is that this one's been modified so

all that means is that this stock IR cut

filter has been removed and it's just

the naked sensor mod so nothing else was

replaced just that IR cut filter that

blocks out the red colors that are no

good for daytime photography but it's so

important for astrophotography and

that's been removed you can do this

modification yourself and that's exactly

what I did with my previous DSLR for

astrophotography the XSI you go in there

take it apart pry it off with an exacto

knife you really need to follow the

instructions but it's interesting that

some of the newer DSLRs it's a lot

harder to do this modification yourself

and you're better off actually sending

it away for a professional to do but

these older ones such as the t3i and the

XS I and XS you could really do yourself

if you follow along with the YouTube

video so I'm sticking with that this

camera is still under $200 if you modify

it yourself for free the star tracker

this the star adventurer here really is

the key to the whole thing and why it

works with that star tracker now I can

take long exposure tracked images of the

night sky which is the key to taking

deep sky Astro photography images

there's also a filter inside the camera

if I was under dark skies I wouldn't

need that filter or just a UV IR cut

filter but I've got a light pollution

filter in there the sky Tech's Els CCD

just to help me capture an image with

better contrast that ignores a lot of

the city light pollution I'm used to in

the backyard I think you'll find that

there's a lot of capable older DSLRs

that are great for astrophotography what

makes this t3i so special specifically

one of the main things is Believe It or

Not this flip out screen so handy for

astrophotography being able to flip it

out when you're focusing on stars or

you've got to point it up and you need

to see the screen another cool thing is

that you can very easily and affordably

run it using AC power I've got the

battery in there now but

you can actually put a dummy battery in

the bottom and then the other end you

can actually plug into AC power so then

you're powering the camera through AC

power not relying on that battery which

will die quickly so to look at the

camera settings I used for my photos and

these are pretty typical of all the

Ostrow photography images I take with

this camera whether it's through a lens

or telescope so you want it in manual

mode normally you'll be shooting it in

ball mode which is just beyond 30

seconds ISO 1600 which is a bit

aggressive some people like to use more

like 800 or 400 this camera the noise

profile 1600 seems to be the sweet spot

where you can actually pick up a little

more signal but still remove that noise

through calibration don't worry about

white balance you can adjust that

because we're shooting the files in raw

mode so we can adjust that after the

fact so yeah just a really capable

little camera and one last thing the

remote shutter release cable on the side

door here there's a spot for that this

is the remote shutter release cable I

use and that allows me to automate a

sequence of exposures that just plugs in

here and then there's no need for a

laptop or anything to run your session

you can just use this little remote

shutter release cable and when you're

keeping equipment to a minimum and setup

time something like this is really handy

it's going down to minus 17 degrees

Celsius tonight so a very cold night

here in Ontario Canada and that's a good

and bad thing so hopefully that is not

too cold for this star tracker it will

be really hard on the batteries the

batteries are gonna die quicker on the

star tracker and in the camera itself

the good thing about that cold weather

though is that sensor in the camera

isn't gonna get very hot it's probably

gonna hover around somewhere around 0 to

minus 5 degrees which is great for

keeping noise at bay the other thing to

deal with with this cold weather is that

the lens will frost up after probably

about 30 minutes 45 minutes so I'll need

a dew heater band which I'll wrap around

the lens hood on the camera lens and

that will keep it warm enough so it just

doesn't frost over speaking of the lens

if you're looking for a camera lens for

astrophotography the Rokinon 135

millimeter f2

an extraordinary lens for this purpose

it's a relatively affordable camera lens

that can shoot with that fast F ratio of

F 2.0 which is really important when it

comes to astrophotography because you

can really control the amount of light

that's hitting that sensor in each

exposure next up I'm going to hop

outside set everything up go over some

of the camera settings I'm gonna use to

photograph this target tell you what the

target is and my plans for shooting it

tonight hopefully it stays clear I'm not

sure if you can tell or not but it is

bitterly cold out here it's about minus

10 now and dropping so that's one of the

main reasons I set up a rig like this on

a night like tonight I want to spend as

little time as possible out here so

setting up a big robust deep sky rig

with a telescope and a heavy tripod and

a heavy mount that would take about 45

minutes maybe to an hour to set it up

properly and that would just crush my

fingers so this takes about 10 minutes

to set up I can still do my Astro

photography thing even though it's so

cold but I don't have to stay out with

it for long periods of time so the next

steps now are just waiting for it to get

dark out so I can pull or align them out

and then I'm going to slow over to my

target focus and my target by the way is

the horse head nebula in Orion and

surrounding area it's just gonna be an

incredible shot at 135 millimeters it's

very important as I said that I put the

dew heater bands on here to keep the

lens warm so it doesn't frost over I've

also got the dummy battery in the DSLRs

so I can plug the DSLR into AC power

that battery would die within an hour if

I didn't yeah so far so good I'm going

inside to warm up from them but I'm in

Orion's belt

you can actually see the Orion Nebula

and the belt stars I'll zoom in so you

can see it so that's actually the Orion

Nebula

there you can see that kind of a glow

and then those are the three belt stars

over here and the Horsehead Nebula is

near this star here which is Allen

attack so I know that it's in there so

right now I'll know that I'll get the

Horsehead Nebula and the Orion Nebula in

a single field of view this is a great

time to focus the lens - so I'm at f/2

wide open and when i zoom in on these

stars and adjust the focus ring it's a

really nice tension on the focus ring on

the Rokinon 135 there we go in a note

and write a boat there is as sharp as I

can get it and then I'm gonna click

stops down click 2f 2.8

that'll sharpen things up just a little

bit so I'm going to be shooting my

images at F 2.8 just to sharpen things

up and lose a little bit of light

gathering power but that's okay 2.8

still pretty fast

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