Astronomy tests the Canon 60Da

Higher resolution, heightened red sensitivity, and other features make this DSLR the new standard for astroimaging.

By Jack Newton

Published: November 26, 2012

When I heard that Canon had released the EOS 60Da, a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera especially designed for astroimaging, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Because I had reviewed the Canon 20Da (in the July 2006 issue of Astronomy) when the company introduced it, I was able to compare the performance of both versions for this story.

Canon offers the 60Da as a camera body only (no lens), although it is compatible with the company’s family of EF and EF-S lenses. The camera package includes a rechargeable battery, a plug-in power supply, the Remote Controller Adapter RA-E3, an AVC-D400ST stereo audio-visual cable, software disks, and an operating manual.

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JEFFREY MCCLURE from TEXAS said:

Jose: I have a supercooled CCD astronomy camera, which cost me significantly more than my 60Da. I shoot though a Skywatcher 120 ED Pro telescope. The 60Da has provided me with photos that are very similar in quality to the CCD images i obtained with a filter wheel. Yes, if I am shooting the Hubble palette (Ha, SII, and OIII) I can get more color and a deeper red, but the large format of the Da enables me to capture an entire object whereas before I had to shoot a mosaic and stitch them together. More, if I have a relatively short window to shoot an object i can get the full color spectrum in, for example, a ten minute exposure. What used to take hours or sometimes months I now can get in about 50 minutes.

Very importantly, at an ambient temperature of about 70 degrees f. I was able to get such low noise shots that all i needed was a hot-pixel map to clean out virtually all the noise. With my cooled CCD I absolutely need darks. If you match the telescope/reducer/Barlow with the chip characteristics of the camera the resolution is not different from a smaller chip CCD, it just covers a larger area of the sky.

JOSE ANTON MANTEROLA from SPAIN said:

such big resolutions can't be good for an astronomy camera. I think this is not a objective report.

ROBERT LAWRENCE from said:

I almost decided to wait for the 60Da to come out. Unfortunately I also wanted to take daytime pictures so I got the 60D instead. I have taken a few pictures with a long telephoto (not hooked up to my scope yet) and was very pleased with the results. My favorite feature is that fold out screen, has saved my back a great deal of grief.

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