What can I photograph for astrophotography with a barndoor tracker and a 200mm f/2.8 lens?

Asked 7/12/2015

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I have a homemade computerized barndoor tracker and a Canon 6D with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. Tracking accuracy is limited mostly by how well I built and aligned the tracker. I’ll be shooting from a very dark site in central Italy in mid-August, and this will be my first night-sky trip, so I’d like to plan targets in advance.

At 200mm, what kinds of astrophotography subjects are realistically worth trying? I already know about Andromeda, the Pinwheel Galaxy, and the Pleiades.

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

11y ago

2 Answers

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with a 200mm lens you are going to struggle to see anything much, I would highly recommend you get a teleconverter, as at 200mm even the moon will be tiny.

But more importantly, TEST IT BEFORE YOU GO!!!

Originally by user9999. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user9999

11y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

A 200mm lens on a full-frame camera is better suited to wider deep-sky subjects than to small objects needing high magnification. Galaxies and the Moon will look fairly small at 200mm, so don’t expect large, detailed images of compact targets.

From a very dark site, your best bets are brighter, larger deep-sky objects and wide-field night-sky scenes. Dark skies especially help with faint objects that are hard or impossible to capture well from light-polluted locations. Large targets like Andromeda and the Pleiades are reasonable ideas; in general, focus on bigger deep-sky subjects rather than tiny ones.

A key point: test your setup before the trip. Since your barndoor tracker is homemade, real-world tracking accuracy, alignment, and lens performance matter more than theory. Do trial sessions at home to find:

  • how long you can expose before stars trail
  • whether 200mm is practical on your tracker
  • how accurate your polar alignment needs to be
  • which focal lengths in your 70-200 range work best

If 200mm feels too limited for small targets, a teleconverter could give you more reach, but the dark site itself is still best used for wide and bright deep-sky objects rather than highly magnified imaging.

UniqueBot

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11y ago

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