Digital cameras for meteor photography

Question

I need help deciding which digital camera to buy to use for open exposures (several minutes) to photograph the forthcoming Perseid Meteor Shower.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Tough question.  Most astronomy cameras are attached to tracking telescopes and run though computers.   If you want long exposure pictures, I assume that you are going to attach to a tracking mount of some sort so that you don't get star trails.  

Orion, Celestron, and Meade all have some good equipment that easily attach to their telescopes and mounts.  

There are some other cameras out there which also are very good, but way out of my budget range, so their brand names excape me right now.    

The most important thing with astrophotography is the mount that you use.  It must track the movement of the earth precisely or the stars will not be points of light but streaks instead.

Edit:

Yes, you do want the tracking especially with the meteor shots.  If you do not track the sky properly so that the stars are points of light, then the streaks of the meteors will be lost in the streaks of the stars.

Answer 2

well in this case you dont want "tracking"  equipment as you want the "trails" - -I would get a camera that has the ability to hold open the shutter to lengthen the exposure time - USE A TRIPOD  :)

and also a camera that has a LARGE aperature ( lens opening )

I would cay any of the cannon digital SLR's would work fine in this case. plus you can remove the lense and attach it to a scope and use it for other atronomy photographs (those you would want the tracking device)

Answer 3

Waste of time, none are good enough to do the job yet, except for Charge Couple Devices, and you need big bucks to follow this route, far better to learn about film, and reciprocity failure of the film, and build a "cold camera", Try the "Cambridge Book of Astronomical, Photography", excellent text, as a starting point in Astrophotography....and plans for a "cold camera" construction as well....