For my 50th birthday my wonderful wife got me a brand new Canon EOS 600d DSLR camera. We’ve been making do with a basic compact camera for a few years now, for holidays, and use it for some simple astrophotography, and also using my LX-modified SPC900NC webcam for planetary and DSO photos.

But we are booked for a Norwegian cruise holiday early next year, and wanted a good quality camera to use on the trip and to get some shots (hopefully) of the Northern Lights aurora, so we splashed out and got the 600D. I am very pleased with it, and staggered by the features it has.

So far I have attempted some wide view shots of the night sky, with 30 second to 1 minute exposures, which give a good idea of the sensitivity of the camera, but of course result in trailing of the stars. I’ve got a small motorised EQ tripod mount which a friend lent me (cheers James), and I will be having a go with that soon.

Also I have ordered a [1] Canon EOS (AF) compatible T-ring adapter plus a [1] Celestron SCT T-adapter to mount the camera directly to the backplane of my C6-SGT telescope. And I will probably also order [2] BackyardEOS to assist with focusing and taking sequences of images.

All good stuff to look forward to, particularly when we go to the September Star Party at Kelling Heath.