Astronomy reviews Canon's new astrocamera

With 30 megapixels of resolution, a full-frame sensor, and a mirrorless body, the EOS Ra camera can help you reveal the night sky in all its glory.

With all the noise about Sony and Nikon cameras over recent years, I was under the impression that Canon had gone dormant. I could not have been more wrong. Not only has Canon been quietly creating new innovations in camera lenses and design, but they also have been working to improve the overall quality of their products. This is clearly evident with the release of their new EOS Ra camera.

The camera is based on the company’s mirrorless R model, with two significant modifications. Instead of the usual 10x magnification, the latest Ra model can go to 30x, allowing you to obtain an extremely precise focus on stars, especially when using a wide-angle lens. Additionally, the Ra model sports a newly designed filter that lets the emission line of Hydrogen-alpha (Hα) at 656.3 nanometers really shine through. This leads to a roughly fourfold increase in the transmission sensitivity of Hα light — enabling you to capture deeper, more vivid reds — for the Ra compared to previous models, yet the window is so precise that the camera can still be used in daylight. Though Canon officials “do not recommend” using the Ra for daytime applications, after two months of daytime use, I have yet to see a bad picture.

The Canon Ra, like the R, has a full-frame, 30.3-megapixel CMOS sensor with an individual pixel size of 5.36 microns. The large pixel size helps it strike a good balance between resolution and light sensitivity, as each of the Ra’s pixels absorbs more photons than the smaller pixels found in many other camera sensors. The Ra’s electronics incorporate the latest DIGIC 8 image processor, which has powerful noise-suppression capabilities. Images taken in extremely low-light situations and then stretched to look normal show very low noise — on par with the best cameras currently available.

The Ra is a thoroughly modern camera, with most of its main controls accessible via touch screen. This makes adjustments at 2 a.m., when you are half-asleep, a breeze. The rear screen also articulates into any position, unlike many other screens that have limited or no movement. When you’re not using the camera, the screen can be folded so its glass face is on the inside, protecting it from damage. And, unique to the Canon R series, when the camera is turned off, the shutter closes, protecting the delicate sensor inside from dust and other contaminants. This also means that changing lenses while the camera is off does not expose the sensor to the environment.