Orions Sword

I traded in my Canon EF 90-300mm lens for a Sigma 70-300mm APO DG (with Macro). Thought I'd give it a try out tonight on the obvious target. The big mans dangly bits just scrape the roof of my house so it was an awkward shot what with reflections from the roof and neighbours bedroom lights. I thought I'd try to capture all or most of the stars in Orion's sword. This is a stack of 13 x 30" exposures - this one is very low res. I'll do the proper job when I get time tomorrow. Camera was piggybacked on a homemade contraption on top of my C102SLT. Canon 350D unmodified.

Wow, nice shot John. It might be a tad out of focus. I didn't think the Orion Nebula was achievable like this. Could I expect a similar image with my own Tamron 70-300mm lens?

Seanie.

Hi Seanie,

The focus was fine - just hurriedly slapped it together last night, and ran out of memory trying to stitch 13 x 24MB TIFF files, so I had to settle for the less than optimum picture you see here. I'll do it again when I get time and make sure I have a better pic to post. I also got about ten good Pleiades shots that I have to work on.

The Tamron is I believe just as good as the Sigma, so I don't see why you shouldn't be able to get a similar shot. This really is done on the cheap - my camera was piggybacked using a barrel clamp (downpipe holder) wrapped around my refractor. Bear in mind my mount is not suitable for astrophotography at all, so I'm happy to get anything.

Very nice John, what advantages does the sigma lens have over the canon ?

Not a lot really - except it is an APO, and it has Macro focusing for closeup photography (focus at 95cm at 300mm extension). The main thing I went for was the APO, the guy in the shop didn't think it much of an advantage but then again he is not trying to bring multicolourd points of light together into a nice round point. I'm sure that it doesn't affect daylight photography much, but we all know the bane of chromatic abberation and it is an unfixable curse for astrophotography. All in I got it for €139 with the Canon 90-300 EF lens on trade-in. It's also much sexier looking and comes with its own case and hard lens hood.

John, I have the same lens, and it will do a good job for you.

Keith..