DSLR modification service?

bluesteel86

Hi there,

First time poster, long time lurker here. I have a Canon 500D that I use for astrophotography and I'm considering getting it modified. Specifically it would be to replace the stock IR filter to make it more sensitive to hydrogen alpha wavelengths (horsehead nebula, heart nebula etc). Can anyone recommend a good service for this?

Thanks in advance

bluesteel86

For anyone who comes across this thread looking for similar advice, here's what I ended up doing:

Rang around several camera shops/repair centers but I couldn't find anywhere in Ireland that performs this modification, so I ended up sending it to Juan of https://www.cheapastrophotography.com/ in the UK. He removed the IR filter and also re-shimmed the camera so it maintains auto-focus for a total of £75. Had the camera back after 2 weeks, very happy with the job he did. Hope this helps someone else

athlone573

bluesteel86 wrote: »

For anyone who comes across this thread looking for similar advice, here's what I ended up doing:

Rang around several camera shops/repair centers but I couldn't find anywhere in Ireland that performs this modification, so I ended up sending it to Juan of https://www.cheapastrophotography.com/ in the UK. He removed the IR filter and also re-shimmed the camera so it maintains auto-focus for a total of £75. Had the camera back after 2 weeks, very happy with the job he did. Hope this helps someone else

Thanks. I see this was after Brexit. Did you have any problems with Customs?

bluesteel86

athlone573 wrote: »

Thanks. I see this was after Brexit. Did you have any problems with Customs?

No I didn't hear anything from customs. It was €12.50 to ship the camera to the UK, and Juan advised that the £75 fee included shipping the camera back to me. That was it, had it back 2 weeks from the day I sent it

iLikeWaffles

bluesteel86 wrote: »

For anyone who comes across this thread looking for similar advice, here's what I ended up doing:

Rang around several camera shops/repair centers but I couldn't find anywhere in Ireland that performs this modification, so I ended up sending it to Juan of https://www.cheapastrophotography.com/ in the UK. He removed the IR filter and also re-shimmed the camera so it maintains auto-focus for a total of £75. Had the camera back after 2 weeks, very happy with the job he did. Hope this helps someone else

That's a nice price! Were you able to test it yet. Would love to hear you thoughts on how better it performs.

bluesteel86

iLikeWaffles wrote: »

That's a nice price! Were you able to test it yet. Would love to hear you thoughts on how better it performs.

I'm actually testing it out tonight on the heart nebula. Tomorrow night should be clear too (fingers crossed) so hoping to get 2 nights of decent data and create my first hargb composite. Will let you know what the results are like

bluesteel86

iLikeWaffles wrote: »

That's a nice price! Were you able to test it yet. Would love to hear you thoughts on how better it performs.

https://www.astrobin.com/lzwytm/

That's the end result after 2 nights of shooting the heart nebula with this camera. I haven't shot many Ha rich targets before apart from the horsehead nebula. I've avoided them for the most part up until now in favour of brighter targets for the stock dslr, but the difference here is night and day imo. One thing I noticed is the sensor temperature ran up to 21c and generated a fair bit of noise. Not sure if it was the case beforehand or if I'm only noticing it now, but calibration frames seemed to smooth out any issues. Suppose there are many factors that can affect temperature. Overall, very happy out

athlone573

Nice work. I'm at a more basic level as in still working out how to use a tracker.

bluesteel86

athlone573 wrote: »

Nice work. I'm at a more basic level as in still working out how to use a tracker.

Thanks, still using a star tracker myself and don't think I'll be upgrading for a while. With a wide field scope/lens you can get some very decent exposure lengths without guiding