I have very recently had my butt kicked into action by an amazing wide field image taken by Kerry. Taken with a Canon 40D dSLR and without any tracking, this is a very nice piece of work by any standards.
O.K. so I have had the Canon 40D for coming up to a year, and although its primary use has always been for terrestrial panoramas and macro shots, its application as an awesome, high-resolution, wide-field, deep-sky imager has always been in the back of my mind. Kerry’s work has kicked me into doing something about it. So this weekend I have ordered up all the kit necessary to allow me to carry out tracked astro-imaging using the Canon 40D, with an ultra-portable setup, so I can take the system over the New Forest for some very dark skies, and also to be able to image right down to the horizon! For the first time I’ll stand a chance of bagging the Sagittarius objects which are always hidden behind a tree-line from my home observatory.
I’m keeping quiet on the tracking system I’ve based this new setup on until it arrives through the post (hopefully next week). When its all here I’ll post some images of the new imaging system and will keep you fully up to date on any progress made with an ultra wide-field deep-sky imager based on the Canon 40D – provided we get some clear skies!
