Atik Titan mini review

[riklaunim]

For 314E look at:

http://www.atik-cameras.com/Atik_314e_review.pdf

http://www.siamesedream.co.uk/ukai/reviews/atik314e/Atik_314e_review.pdf

ATIK 314e CCD Camera - Article

Atik 314E

[thommo10]

Hi all

Just read this review sounds good, I just want to know would it be harder to take images with the colour version than the mono. as this was the mono version are the images of jupiter and nebula false colour.

[riklaunim]

You can do color images with a mono camera (with RGB filters). Color camera doesn't needs them but has some sometimes important for the imager limitations. And you won't find many planetary images from Atik cams - they aren't widely used for that

[Bogbreath]

I was thinking of getting one of these as well (trying to use an old Nikon D50 and getting focus right through an eyepiece is to damned hard:mad:) and was wondering if it can be used as a guide cam at the same time as imaging?

Other than that as a complete novice to astro imaging and wanting something for both planetary and DSO's is this a good buy?

[NickK]

Unfortunately it can't be used for guiding at the same time as imaging.

If it's your first cam, I'd look for a second hand cam first. Then when you have had some experience just move the s/h cam to being a guider. Thats what I did.

I like it but then I'm slightly biased as I know it inside and out from writing the OSX driver for it.

[Bogbreath]

Well strictly speaking not my 1st camera as I have a little Celestron planetary cam as well as well as the Nikon and its T adaptor.. but i wanted something moderatly priced that could do Deep sky without the discomfort of squinting through a tiny eyepiece

[Tinker1947]

Well strictly speaking not my 1st camera as I have a little Celestron planetary cam as well as well as the Nikon and its T adaptor.. but i wanted something moderatly priced that could do Deep sky without the discomfort of squinting through a tiny eyepiece

You could think about a Canon with Live View, Second Hand or refurbished...

[avoneschen]

I just purchased the Atik Titan Monochrome and am struggling with using it. This is my first CCD and I have never done astrophotography before.

I went through the focusing procedure outlined in the manual and that seems to work just fine. But when I pointed my scope at Saturn and took a snap shot, there was a lot of noise. I could make out the glow of Saturn, especially when I upped the exposure to 2 seconds or more. But anything at 1 second or shorter produced so much noise the screen just looked like a bunch of black and white pixels. When I tried aiming the scope at DSOs, no matter what exposure setting I used the screen was just a bunch of black and white pixels.

NOTE: I used both ArtemisCapture and AstroArt to take pictures and they both did the same thing.

I tried using different filters (RGB) but the result was the same. I was in a fairly dark sky area... but still had the same issue. It was impossible to see any stars in all of the noise (unless it was really bright like Arcturus).

NOTE: when I took all of the noisy Saturn images and stacked them in AstroArt the noise went away. But if the capture process only ever shows noise, it will make it difficult to see what I'm doing and pointing at.

The attached image is when I set the exposure to 2 seconds. Anything less and the noise completely drowned out Saturn. For galaxies and other DSOs, I only ever got complete noise.

Any thoughts or ideas on how I can solve this issue would be greatly appreciated!

[riklaunim]

Titan is hard for planetary imaging... you have to do it the DS-way. What scope and f-ratio did you use?

When testing I used Nebulosity2 (but Artemis will do - without the fast 15FPS mode enabled). I captured 100 frames at 0,2 - 0,3 sec exposures. The histogram is poorly filled in but it does stack. For C11 at f/20 RGB looks like so:

and ORGB:

O - orange longpass bright filter used to make a luminance channel.

[avoneschen]

It was a 10" TMB refractor. I believe f/9.

[riklaunim]

It is bit small, but still at f/9 it should be doable.

[Gazabone]

Thank you for such a helpful review and for posting pictures of what the camera is capable of. It seems even though your review was 5 years ago, the Titan still represents very good value for money. I think I will be investing in one of these in the near future. If I upgrade at some stage then I have a great guide camera.

Cheers