Jan 15

Stellarium App

A review of Stellarium has long been overdue… since I use it to plan all my astrophotography sessions. Stellarium is a rich feautered planetarium app with a very realistic sky, available for Windows, MacOS or Linux and it’s free! I use it frequently for searching new objects for photography. It’s fun! If you want use Stellarium to plan your sessions […]

Jan 7

My Mobile Observatory

With the Star Adventurer I’m very mobile. Build up in about 10 minutes! So I’m not bound to a single place. But most of the time I’m on my balcony in Derendingen, Solothurn (444m Alt.), especially during the work days. Unfortunately my field of view is limited to North and East, with best view towards […]

Oct 29

EOS 70D Astro Modification

Finally, today my EOS 70D was astro modified by DSLR Astrotec. I choosed the basic modification (H-Alpha sensitivity 80-85%). I was so dissapointed about my last picture of the Flaming Star Nebula (400mm f/5.6 compared to my last year image of the Flaming Star Nebula at 200mm f/3.5), so I decided to modify my 70D. […]

Aug 27

Star Adventurer in Action

My lovely little mount in action 😉 Date/Time: 27. Aug. 2016  00:28h – 02:18h CET Location: Near Balsthal, Solothurn, Switzerland (47.33°N 7.62°E) 221 frames, 25fps 30s interval, 12s exposures, f/2.8, ISO2500

Aug 6

Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L

I got it. The Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L. Here is my little story, why I buyed this lens. Starting with auto guiding resulted in 100% sub utilization. I could go more than 3 x longer exposure time like before without guiding. So, more focal lenght would be cool 🙂 In other words, I want go to the limit of […]

May 29

Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8

Here is my new wide field lens. The Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8. It’s sharpness and value at that low price was rated very positive in various reviews so I decided to complete my lens collection with this little thing. Unfortunately the night sky is not very clear at the moment so I did a few test shots […]

May 21

Canon EOS 70D

My new DSLR 🙂 After a year using the 100D I was looking for an update… The decision was hard. Full frame or again APS-C… Finally my decision goes to APS-C. With it, I still can use all my lenses, the remote controller (same model für 100D/70D), the Astronomik CLS Clip Filter and the most important […]

May 3

Bahtinov Mask

Finally, I got my Bahtinov mask 🙂 Hopefully it will fulfill my expectations… The mask has a pattern wich generates spikes around a (bright!) star. This helps reach good focus. If the spikes are centered, the star is in focus.  

Apr 24

Solar Filter

So, I’m prepared for the Mercury transit in May (2016). Used foil: Baader Solar Filter OD 5.0. Hopefully it will be a clear view to watch and record the transit with the Skywatcher Explorer 130P…

Jan 19

Kenko C-AF 1.4x MC4 Test

I was looking for a 1.4x teleconverter for my canon lenses. Finally, the Kenko C-AF 1.4x MC4 was very interesting. Due to it’s construction you can use it with almost every EF lens from Canon. So, the plan was to extend my lenses to 70mm f/2.0 (EF 50mm f/1.4), 140mm f/4.0 (EF 100mm f/2.8) and 280mm […]