Luis Campos

Trust me...I know what you mean

Fred, I work with IRIS by Christin Buil, want to try that?

Cheers,

I think there's also a M48 version, see here:

http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p6128_TS-Canon-EOS-M48-T-Adapter-with-Filter-Quick-Changer---Low-Profile.html

Cheers,

Too bad the TS adaptor is threaded with M42... It doesn't fit the GPU coma corrector (and almost all other ones) which is M48.

Problem solver: http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p3504_TS-Adaptor-from-M48--2--filter-thread--to-T2---low-profile.html

Cheers

See here: http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p5741_Filter-Quick-Changer-incl--1x-filter-drawer-for-unmounted-36mm-filters---low-profi.html

Baader 36mm 7 Nm Ha filter: http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p4367_Baader-H-Alpha---7nm---36mm-w-o-cell.html

If you can also build an adaptor of some sort you still can use the filter only for now while you can't afford the drawer system, I did mine with a foam ring and place it inside the T-adaptor

Salut Fred,

That look like a cool inexpensive gadget for sure, I also did something of teh kinf do use my existing 1.25" Ha filter when I debayered my 350D, it works but you'll have quite some vigneting, sure you can crop out the bad peripheral areas and end up with a nice clean image

Abou the filter, when I can buy them go for the 36mm unmounted versions, they are so much cheaper then the 2"! Cheack the filter drawer system by TS that replaces the T-adaptor and allows you to use the full range of 36mm filter, that what we all use around here Also this filter drawer allows you to use all accesories like raducers, coma correctors, etc, as it maintains the same distance as a convencional T-adaptor, very clever stuff indeed!

Cheers,

Luís

...And I complain when I'm outside at 0Cº!!!

Herra, you have my respect!

Exactly what I been finding with the cooled cameras I'm using, there's nothing to gain going sub zero, the ideal is to maintain at around 5Cº to 0Cº, this not only requires a smaller TEC and heatsink but also much less power consumption and less likely to get frost on the sensor

Cheers,

Hi guys!

Thought youl'd like to know:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/234089-rosete-with-mono-550d-first-light/

Cheers

"The cold finger is very easy to do, I do mine with a 2mm aluminium plate and grind the sensor contact area with a Dremmel tool till it fits on the sensor gap (about 1.3mm) but you also have to modify the camera's chasis (nothing special...) I don't have the measurements here now but I'm thinking on making a detailed tutorial on how to do the full cooling mod on the 450D once I have some good free time"

I made my cold finger out of 2mm copper...yes, a little heavier but no doubt a little more efficient! i have not yet completed the cold finger mod still waiting for a bit more info on the connections and trying to decide whether i should put the body into a box or go with the aluminium heat sink on the side of the camera!! decisions..decisions!!

Iv'e attached a couple of photo's for the measurements, the black cover is thin self adhesive Teflon tape to prevent electrical contact with the sensor. the small screws are to fix the cold finger to the sensor frame.

they fit perfectly.

Ray

Yeah copper is much better but around here I can't find any usefull bit for this so went for aluminium, still good cold transfer

Mine is at the side, works great

Cheers,

Very interesting and useful Luis - thank you

When I was using a cooled 1100D as OSC with ISO 3200 I found a noticeable improvement in going down to -10C but the 450D is different and max ISO is 1600 and I can understand that this may mean that cooling to -10C or lower might give little benefit.  I have yet to test the 450D.  I am leaving the CFA removal of my latest 450D sensor until I'm feeling more confident in my abilities.  As things are ATM I cannot afford to but any more cameras for their sensors.

I was interested to read your comment on the high reflectivity of the 450D cover glass Luis, means I'm now thinking twice about replacing it.  If 0C is low enough for cooling, the problems of condensation are much reduced and I think I could get away with one optical window.

You're welcome Gina

Yep, there's really no need to supercool at least with the 450D

The original coverglass is really bad reflections wise, there's no big problem on a original RGB sensor but with a monofied sensor is very different, what happens is that the glass layer under the CFA is highly reflective and when we polish the sensor face to remove the CFA it gets really shiny and light from brighter stars ends up bouncing from the sensor face to the coverglass and big uglly halos show up and it's even worse with the Ha filter, the shiny surface of the Ha filter get this phenomenon even worse!

See here some comparasion images of several cover glasses used, these are all unfiltered test shots, this is a worte case scenario with bright Arcturus:

Original cover glass placed directly on the sensor face, this one creates a very bright cross pattern of multiple reflections:

LPF1 only filter placed on the filter frame, but NO original cover glass, this one is coated but bad quality...still big bad halos and a cross pattern:

And this is the Astronomik clear glass filter (no filtering but very good anti reflection coatings) this one also placed on the filter frame and sensor with NO cover glass:

Hope you find this usefull

Cheers,

Luís

Thanks Luis, 

you've got some amazing images with it. 

I must admit, I wasn't very impressed with the 450D before debayering compared to the 350D. strange, I thought the 350D was definitely sharper and had more contrast. one big difference is the bigger pixel in the 350D which is what I like about it and of course its a piece of cake to debayer, well relatively speaking. 

with the 450, do you manage to get your cover glass intact, after debayering, do you stick it back on or leave it naked, do you have a flat taken with a 450D, how many have you done so far and finally how easy is it to cut a cold finger?

I was thinking, why do we need the mirror box assembly at all with the dslr's? we could possibly extend the ribbons and keep it outside the body just for the electronics to work or make a shutter emulator. that way, you can house the whole sensor and pcb in a sealed box with a T2 thread. something i'll be testing later. 

Cheers

Alistair

It's like you say, pixel size of the 350D is a good match for most systems and seeing conditions, it it wasn't for the amp glow and 12 bit the 350D would still be a winner

Regading the 450D, I like a lot it's simplicity and very low noise performance even at 1600 ISO, with a cooling system this one is a killler!

Yes, the cover glass comes out intact on the 450D just by working all around with a thin blade, this original cover glass is very, very bad reflection wise, it has no AR coatings at all, so for the MONO versions only I replace it with a astronomik clear glass filter, this one is IMHO the best filter available for this type of mod, it's very high qulity and excellent coatings that minimize reflections on bright stars, even RGB cameras will benefit from having one of this in place.

I have several flats, this flat is from a camera that stil has some bits of CFA but it gives you a nice idea of what can be acheived with just polishing with the dry tip of the wooden tool:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/37419943@N08/13434966625/ 

So far I did about 11 or 12 450D's most of them for mono conversion and some just cooled (RGB cameras)

The cold finger is very easy to do, I do mine with a 2mm aluminium plate and grind the sensor contact area with a Dremmel tool till it fits on the sensor gap (about 1.3mm) but you also have to modify the camera's chasis (nothing special...) I don't have the measurements here now but I'm thinking on making a detailed tutorial on how to do the full cooling mod on the 450D once I have some good free time

By now I have a working system with ZERO sensor fogging problems even under sub zero temperatures, tested at -10Cº during winter with no problems whatsoever, took me a loooooong time to figure a sollution out but I'm proud to say that it works amazingly well!

I like to have a "normal" camera with all functions accessible as original, so for me this system is tops, I have a cooling system attached to a normal looking camera with all original functions, including remote cable access, this is because you don't really need to supercool the sensor to have a very clean image, I see no benefict or much difference between 0cº or -10Cº on noise levels, so the sweet stop of cooling in a DSLR is somewere around 0Cº.   

I don't have any comparo with RGB filters buit I supect that noise levels will be lower with a mono camera and LRGB filters especially lower color noise (less blotchy) and a bit better resolution, the mono camera even in simple LUM. is a tad sharper due to the fact that it doesn't interpolate pixels and therefore resolution is increased a litlle, now narrowband is a whole different story, even with a tad less sensitivity the 450D has amazing resolution and the same is true for the oldie 350D!

Cheers,

Luís   

And here some more steps of the process:

Cheers,

Luís

Hey Alistair

Indeed the 450D's are the best model to debayer IMHO, altough not quite as sensitive as the oldie 350D the noise free and good sensor behavior at 1600 ISO makes this one the best allround for NB work.

As you said I've debayered quite a few by now using the wooden tool method, I killed also a couple sensors during the conversion, it's all a part of the process I'm afraid

The difficult part is to get a clean sensor as the CFA remnants are really attached to the sensor surface, but what I do is polish just using the tip of the wooden tool at the same spot until I see no signs of CFA in that area, and I use one of those magnifier with a led ligh for electronics work, it's very helpfull, this is very time consuming but very effective, just go by areas untill you do all the sensor, polish, polish and then some more polish And I mean dry polish just appling moderate pressure on the tool as you go.

See here a couple of flats and images of some of my 450D's:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/37419943@N08/

Best,

Luís

Thanks Luis. have you removed the anti-reflective coating in those debayered sensors? I suppose flat frames can sort out imperfections but I'm  obsessed with having a nice perfect golden sensor.

BTW, you wouldn't have a tutorial for a deep cooled 1000D, would you? I haven't found anything online for this model.

Hi,

No I do not remove the clear coat, with the scarping method it stays there, it can have some micro scratches but they don't show up on the final callibrated image, nor the litle specs of CFA, so don't get too obsessed with that, if you do you will kill the sensor Just make sure you dither the subs quite agressively and you will be ok.

The 1000D is exactly the same as the 450D, so any on the 450D will be apliable on the 1000D

Cheers

BTW, check here the last image of M51 I did last saturday with my cooled mono 450D:

http://www.astrobin.com/94428/0/

Cheers

Hi guys!

Been awhile

By now I've debayered quite a few sensors (350D, 450D, 1000D, 1100D) and what I founs is this, the older cameras with bigger pixels do have a gain is sensitivity due to the large pixel size, the loss of microlenses is offset by the removal of the CFA and by quite a bit specially on the 350D, the 1000D is also very noticeabble as Pixueto has pointed out, it is correct that the light meter does overexpose the images on a debayered sensor, so this means that there is a gain in sensitivity, also I have some images done with half sensor debayered that prove this

For the "newer" cameras there is a very slight loss in sensitivity unfortunately, but it's not much but for me exposing maybe 10% more and get a full resolution image in narrowband full of detail is well worth the slight sensitivity loss

BTW, the 1100D sensor is BY FAR the most difficult one to debayer, the CFA is so stuck to the surface that is really complicated to remove!

Best,

hmm...

maybe ill try it tonight. if the upper spots works i'm still satisfied. a little bit at least...

when i started disassembling the cam i had huge doubts that it would work. 

i just wonder why there is so much noise in the dark.. is it also due to the fact that i went too deep on the right side?

well.. i got the cam for about 70 euro.. 

Hi,

Same thing happened to me on a 350D sensor, just a small scratch was enough to cause two dead pixels collumns and ended up with very high noise on long exposures, the sensor is useless for astrophoto but still ok for regular BW day photography, except for same ligh horizontal banding...

Better luck next time

Just taken some flats and here's a sample sub - fed through DCRaw and stretched in Ps plus the Curves Histogram  showing the stretch

450D_Flat_2013-10-05_12-34-59_0023_ISO1600_1-4000s__31C.jpg  Flat Histogram.PNG

This one looks really sweet Gina

No doubt, your best one to date, practice leads to perfection

Can't wait to see the result!

BTW, I'm also going to apply a cooling system on a debayered 450D I'm making for a friend, I think I found a way to combat the sensor cover glass dewing problem Will let you know once I have proper tests

Cheers,

Luís

Oh no....

I hope it doens't affect long exposure perofrmance, the same happened to one of my 350D's sensor, one too deep scratch and I got two dead pixels collumns, it still works but long exposure is seriously compromised, it shows horrible noise...

Best of luck Gina

Cheers, 

And a 2 minute dark at ISO 1600 (max for the 1000D) stretched enormously in Ps until the noise showed.  A slight hint of increased background signal here and there but nothing significant and no added hot pixels.

CFA Removal 23.jpg

This one looks far better then the other attempt, much more linear no doubt, I think this one will work great for you

Congrats Gina, it sure is a well deserved victory

Cheers,

Luís

Bebayering 1000D sensor is going well

CFA Removal 18.jpg  CFA Removal 19.jpg

...Practice leads to perfection, right Gina?

i mustve gone over the blue area, picture is completely black,

oh well, back to square one

I'm really sorry to hear that buddy...

Excellent - great stuff Luis

As for cooling, I think the 450D is similar to the 1100D so I would like to refer you to this thread - http://stargazerslou...d-temperatures/

Thank you Gina

I have my COLOR 450D beeing TEC cooled, I still have to finish the system to get the MONO 450D also TEC cooled, here's what I'm doing, not sure if sharing the images with this link works but here goes:

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=afd47809627dc94e#cid=AFD47809627DC94E&id=AFD47809627DC94E!120

Cheers,

That's brilliant Luis. So 7 minute subs is the way to go then? I went for 20 minute subs with my monochrome canon 1000D and the noise was horrendous. I did that because, with the 7nm H-alpha filter, the histogram was completely to the left but then when processed with IRIS, the stretching seemed to go well.

Now, if the image with the 450D is uncooled and the total integration time is 49 minutes, it seems to me that cooling isn't that critical after all, is it? I mean, very good results are being achieved at ambient temperature. Luis, can you tell us which control frames have you used in those photos?

Thanks

Thanks buddy

I made 7 min. here but this is only with a broadband LP filter (Baader moon & sky glow filter) and don't forget I use a 200mm f/4 newtonian and this pulls in a LOT of photons

But hay, I have some images made with the same exposure time on my backyard using the 1.25" Ha 12 Nm filter that show tremendous detail (for an urban location) on the bubble nebula, latter I'll process that image and show what's possible even with littlçe time on it...this is the beauty of cooling, you don't need a lot of frames to get a final smooth image

For this image in particular I followed as usual the full callibration routine under Iris, BIAS, DARKS and FLATS with median sum combine (2 iterations) and just one iteration of deep space noise reduction under (Photoshop Astronomy tools actions).

Greets,

Hi all,

I have some data now from the Mono modded 450D to compare with the Mono 350D, these two images were made on the same night and although the 450 is not cooled yet, I think is shows very good performance, gladly it shows very good sensitivity, more then my initial test were showing, so perhaps even with smaller pixels, the better processor and 14 bits are pulling that faint details on pair with the bigger pixels of the 350D, the image as a bit less signal but also a bit less total integration (7x7 min. vs 8x7 min. of the 350 image).

So bottom line is, the 450D WILL MAKE ONE HELL OF AN ASTRO CAMERA ONCE IT'S COOLED

So here is the 350D image (8x7 min. @ 800 ISO COOLED:

http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

And the 450D image (not cooled camera):

http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

Don't forget to right click and choose original size.

Cheers,

Luís

P.S. Way to go Gina!!!!!