After just over 3 years with my trusty Canon 300D DSLR Camera I decided to move onwards to the new Canon 40D. It was well worth the wait to make this huge upgrade!

DPreview:
http://www.dpreview.com/previews/canoneos40d/

Astrophotography Reviews:
http://astrosurf.com/buil/eos40d/test.htm
http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Canon_EOS_40D/live_view_astro-photography.shtml

Last Friday was my first clear night to test it out… and even with the moon high, and in Gibbous phase I was still able to get some decent captures. The Liveview focussing was one of the many reasons that I decided on this camera. It is very hard to focus through a dslr on stars through the viewfinder and now with Liveview the task was made much easier. I could zoom into stars down to magnitude 4.5 for fine tuning. With it’s high speed for transferring raw files I was able to check each frame that was captured and view/organize them indoors for processing. Since my laptop is part of my imaging train.. it was nice to be able to focus on the laptop screen with fast response time, set up a timer for scheduled shutter release, and transfer each image… all with one USB cable.

Only negative… I now need more RAM. Processing went soooo sloowly.

Object: M15 By KerryLH
Scope: Celestron 6in SCT @ f6.3 ( with wires for diffraction spikes), No Filters
Mount: CG5-GT (ASGT)
Camera: Canon 40D (unmodded)
Exposure: 7x1min,8x2min, 23min total, ISO 800, darks and flats
Guiding: DSI-C with SW Equinox 80mm APO, PHD Guiding
Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, PS (Curves, Levels, Saturation, Filters, Noels Actions)

Object: M27 By KerryLH
Scope: Celestron 6in SCT @ f6.3 ( with wires for diffraction spikes), No Filters
Mount: CG5-GT (ASGT)
Camera: Canon 40D (unmodded)
Exposure: 42min total, each frame ~3min, ISO 800, darks and flats
Guiding: DSI-C with SW Equinox 80mm APO, PHD Guiding
Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, PS (Curves, Levels, Saturation, Noels Actions)

NOTE: Half of those frames were lacking detail due to dew 🙁 … but I still stacked them anyway.

Focussed with live view on Sham mag 4.37 (Alpha Sagitta)

Full Frame no cropping

100% crop

Of course I wouldn’t just buy this camera for only AP. I also do a lot of daytime photography and after shooting with it for a few days I have noticed nice improvement in detail and colour saturation (especially in skin tones), and more reduced noise at high ISOs. I’m sad to have to give up the 300D but happy to have moved on. I’ll be looking into selling the 300D body with all original manuals, software, battery charger and Hap Griffin Astro Cable.