Since I’ve been shooting a bit of camera piggyback on the scope, I’ve decided to take lenses a little more seriously. All of my previous lens pictures have been using the 18-55 or 55-200mm Canon EF zoom lenses. Not particularly fast, and with a lot of lens elements. I just got my first fast lens in the mail, a second-hand Canon EF 50mm f/1.4. Anxious to test it quickly, I took it out on the deck tonight and shot toward Vega. This is a handheld shot of Lyra and vicinity, Canon T3 50mm f/1.4, 1/40th sec ISO 6400. No post processing, just the jpg from the camera. (click it to show the full size)
With my eyes I couldn’t see much more than the summer triangle, (though not dark adapted). So I’m pretty happy with the lens.
Scott's Sky Shots 
With that speed you should be able to get some fun shots. It is interesting to shoot some of the asteroids – you shoot the same spot after a couple of nights and look for the star that has moved. When I was shooting film at about 800 asa at 5 minute guided exposures, I could easily get galaxies such as one field with M32 and M33. I was surprised at the contrast you got – I would have expected more sky glow even at 1/40 th of a second. Did you tweek the contrast?
DAD
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I didn’t tweak anything. Just a quick shot to see what it could do. Lot’s of noise, which I could have removed a lot of. I am looking forward to capturing some multi-object shots. I saw one once I was really impressed with: Pleiades and California nebula. Probably need a wider lens for that one, though.
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Pretty amazing for a 1/40 s exposure! ISO 6400 helps.
Try taking several dark frames with the same shutter speed and ISO, but with the lens cap on. Then subtract a flattened stack of the dark frames from the subject photo using PS; the noise and any hot pixels will be reduced.
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Yeah, that’s my next step. My modified DSLR (EOS 1000D as opposed to this unmodified 1100D) only goes up to ISO 1600 anyway, so that will keep the grain down, but it is a noisier sensor in general. My typical post process is to use 10 to 20 30sec exposures and as many flats and darks in Deep Sky Stacker and final level adjustments of the stacked image in PS.
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