Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Who Needs NASA? Exoplanet Detected Using a DSLR

Posted by timothy on from the small-cheap-everywhere dept.

Iddo Genuth writes Until 20 years ago even the best telescopes in the world could not detect a planet outside our solar system. Now, with the aid of a basic DSLR, low cost lens and some DIY magic, you just might be able to "see" ET's home planet for yourself. Your DSLR can do much more than just take a few nice portraits or the occasional vacation photos – if you have some DIY experience (O.K. a bit more than just "some"), you might be able to repeat what David Schneider was recently been able to do — that is, building his own planet finder using only inexpensive photo gear, low cost electronics, the right kind of software and a lot of patience. Although Schneider was "only" able to rediscover an already known exsoplanet (some 63 light-years away from us), what he did — and more importantly how he did it — might allow planet hunting to become closer to SETI@home than NASA's 550,000 million dollar Kepler space telescope project.

2 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Billions and billions: by Hartree · · Score: 5, Informative

    "550,000 million dollar Kepler space telescope"

    I think you're about 3 orders of magnitude too high.

  2. Re:Ditch the DSLR by hawguy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Want a shallow depth of field? Think you need a large lens / fast lens? Why? When the computer can take multiple photos at different focal lengths and calculate the depth properly. Why twiddle with zoom and f-stop?

    Because by the time my camera gets around to taking several photos at various focal lengths, the fast moving subject I was trying to take a picture of already left the scene. But I have the opposite problem (since I can fake a shallow depth of field in photoshop) -- I have to open the lens all the way on my P&S in any kind of low-light situation since the sensor is too noisy at high ISO's, so I end up with a shallower depth of field than I wanted.

    Want a fast lens? Point and shoots go down to f1.8 now. I can photograph the craters on the moon with a pocket sized G7X without a tripod FFS. How often do you try to detect planets in other solar systems?

    I want a fast lens *and* a larger, lower noise sensor than I can find in most P&S cameras. But I don't use that fast lens for taking pictures of planets or the moon.

    Want to shoot wildlife at a distance? Think your DSLR is the best option? Think again, you should be using a higher pixel camera at a lower zoom, because you'll have difficulty tracking the moving object at high zoom with that lumping great lens.

    Right, all those sports photographers that use the big $8000+ 300mm telephoto lenses could save some money and just get a point a shoot with more pixels than his 20MP DSLR and he can just crop down the pictures to give him a nice 3MP shot of the winning touchdown. Pixels are pixels, right? The 1/2" sensor on a 20MP point-and-shoot is just as good as the 35mm sensor on his DSLR, right? And what possible difference could there be between an $8000 lens and the lens on a $500 P&S?

    Want to shoot movies? Do you see any pros using DSLRs? They use a Red or similar, not a Canon EOS.

    Here's a list of 30 movies and TV shows that have been shot in whole or part on Canon or Nikon DSLRs:

    http://www.imdb.com/list/ls059...