Just shot the Orion Nebula with a $300 lens vs my old $1500 scope

Used my buddy's Rokinon 135mm f/2 on a star tracker last night, and the raw data was cleaner than anything I've pulled from my big 8-inch SCT in the city. The wider field and faster glass cut my exposure time in half and handled light pollution way better from my backyard in Phoenix. Anyone else get better results from a cheap camera lens than a dedicated telescope?

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3 Comments

webb.dakota6mo ago

Ever think that big gear just makes us lazy with our processing skills?

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wendys166mo ago

My $2000 rig gets outshone by a phone camera on a tripod... it's a special kind of humble pie.

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hugo8256mo ago

The Sony Xperia Pro I has a one inch sensor, basically a point and shoot camera built in. Modern phones use computational photography to stack multiple shots, fixing exposure and focus in software. Your DSLR might capture more raw data, but that phone is doing the work of a full editing suite in half a second. For a single social media post, the processed result is what matters.

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