Chris

You get a sense of the powdery lunar surface looking at these, great set!

Sorry I've only just found your reply! Don't mind at all, it's also made the Jovian moons stand out a bit more

Hey sorry to hear you were too under the weather to make it and I'm glad the vid helped a little Yes Pulsar have new obsy's and we have a few other reveals such as the StellaMira ED125mm f7.8 CF doublet refractor, prototype parallelogram mount, and the IKARUS remote observatory project for solar, planetary and deep sky imaging from Spain to get around our inclement weather ☁️ 💦

The directors cut... 'Tak'ie' in a good way 😆

Wanting to share my experience of the 2022 International Astronomy Show Friday and Saturday (the first one since 2019 for obvious reasons) I quickly nipped around the main hall with the GoPro to give folks that couldn't attend the general vibe, and a look at the shiny equipment of course I personally had a great time working the event on the FLO/IKARUS Observatory stand talking to equally obsessed folk face to face, and although not as busy as 2019 there was a real nice atmosphere. I recorded the main hall before the doors opened so a bit of behind the scenes, and once again as people started to filter in. Thank you all those that stopped and chatted throughout the event and clear skies!

@Ian McCallum Nice before and after Ian The irony, hey! using some kind of minus violet filter seeming to result in almost violet weather belts 🤔

Haha didn't even notice that, well 'spotted' (sorry)... great red blob does also work though 😁 I used a Semi-Apo filter with the achromat which does help sharpen things up but was really fighting the seeing on Wednesday. Thursday as you say was much nicer and the live view of Jupiter was really nice with the 200p. Were you using the ED102 to sketch? Feel free to post the sketch here for comparison if you get time.

Very interesting Pete, it shows how worth while it is taking test shots at different increments of gain regardless of the published HCG switching. I look forward to taking finer increments with the ZWO and seeing what happens. Player one state 180 but your 450 results are a big step up. I don't know if the live stacking effected anything as you would expect the published gain 180 HCG to be correct.

I used the Frac on Wednesday night and the Newt on Thursday....its raining Friday night so Friday is for posting First image - Sky-Watcher Evostar 120mm achromat refractor with 2.5x Barlow and ZWO ASI 462mc. 40% of 1200 frames stacked in Registax6 and finishing touches in GIMP. Second image -Sky-Watcher 200p with 2.5x Barlow and ZWO ASI 462mc. 40% of 1200 frames stacked in Registax6 and finishing touches in GIMP. Third image - Stellarium showing relative position and names of the Jovian moons.

I shall check this next time I'm out imaging ZWO replied saying they made a mistake with their testing which implies that the HCG was always 252 but they tested this incorrectly? or mixed something up perhaps? Anyway they used the word mistake. I have to remember that English isn't their first language so something could be lost in translation. I think the important thing to establish is the best setting for the camera you're using, you'll soon establish this when you do some test shots as you've outlined

I don't believe its the cameras that have changed, rather they made a mistake with the written specs.

I ended up using ASICap for the one session of planetary imaging so far because SharpCap wont communicate with my 585 despite updating the drivers. I need more time to problem solve this so I can get the graph with the switching point. However, I can probably show the switching point by taking an exposure at say gain 249 then 252, if there's a switching point at 252 the noise should drop even though I'm increasing the gain by only 3. If this isn't noticeable in the real world on an actual image to our eyes then perhaps we're worrying about nothing? For example, if there wasn't a switching point you would expect noise to increase and dynamic range to decrease with the increased brightness of the image right? to my eye the noise almost looks less at 252 compared to 150, what do you think? The gain 252 images didn't just look uniformly brighter, the objects seems to pop more from the background. The switching point also boosts the dynamic range back up to 11 stops according to the graph. although this is more do with the colour depth (2 to the power of 11 shades) so not sure if this is why the gain 252 looks more contrasty? The test was simply to show why ZWO changed their written specs, from one specific switching point to another, and I can see why because the gain 252 images look noticeably better to my eye. I think the camera has always had the switching point at 252 and I'm speculating here, but perhaps when they first published the specs of 4 new cameras they got a graph mixed up perhaps? e.g. their new ASI 662 has a switching point of 150 maybe that one got mixed up with the 585?

Here is the AVI of Saturn - Evostar 120 achromat, 2.5x Barlow and ASI 585mc working at 2500mm effective focal length: Obviously Saturn is going to be dimmer compared to Jupiter and the Moon so you need to up the exposure which effects the frame rate. Will also test frame rates with the Moon and Jupiter and make a YT vid about this. I'm currently working on a Vid for the HCG comparison between Gain 150 and 252 so maybe after that 2022-08-20-2219_5-CapObj_pipp.avi

I was surprised also, however this was one night so far so I wont set this in stone until I've done some further testing Need to also hear from others with the ASI 585 as to their experience.

It was a few weeks back but I believe it was set at 1280x960 or 800x600 at most. I'm running a Ryzen 5 8GB RAM 256GB SSD machine with separate Radion graphics card, therefore I don't think it's my machine... it does fine for video editing at 1080p. More testing required of course as I've only used it for planetary on one night.

Hi, yes! 180 second singles subs saved without any changes, just as they are straight out the camera! Perfect for me because I'm so lazy with calibration frames 🤣 Such a great little camera, it's putting a smile on my face each time I use it for deep sky Not the best for planetary so far - only managing around 10fps even in crop mode so I may stick with the ASI 462mc for planetary. I

Hey Pixies, if you're doing any kind of DSO work I can recommend opting for the 585 for it's larger sensor, better for framing a variety of targets. The pixel size between the two cameras isn't vastly different in the scheme of things, however the extra well depth of the ASI 585 is handy when taking longer exposures to help avoid each photosite becoming saturated and electrons bleeding into neighbouring photosites - stars should be tighter and more colour accurate with a deeper well depth sensor the way I understand things. I agree with the above replies

Just shown my wife to see if she would take the hint, big congrats, looks wonderful there!

No probs, just enough time to grab the frames before the clouds rolled in. ☁️☁️ @PeterC65 has ordered the Player one so maybe he can oblige? Also @Luke Newbould If he has time to knock off a couple of frames at gain 150 and 252? A gain comparison between the ZWO and Player One would be very interesting!

Here we go, 180 sec test shots of M31 and M33 at gain 150 then 252 - Bin 1x1, all taken close together one after the other, saved as is. LIght frames, ZWO ASI585mc, StellaLyra F/4 Newtonian, Baader MPCC, Optolong L-pro, Bortle 6. 1) M31 gain 150 2) M31 gain 252 3) M33 gain 150 4) M33 gain 252 - Personally I can see why ZWO changed their figures after realising a mistake was made.

Ok

ZWO were kind enough to reply - the change was down to incorrect initial testing of the Sony sensor, so they retested and updated the specs.

Beautiful scope Jeremy, congratulations! That finder scope bracket will out live us all!

Hi Adam, as it happens I've been in contact with ZWO (out of work hours), I received a surprise email asking if they could feature my initial DSO test shots with the 585! I did let on that people are very curious about this change and asked if they would be willing to say why? - If they choose to let me know they are aware I'm asking on behalf of the masses so I'll take that as having permission to share 😃 https://www.facebook.com/ZwoDesignAstronomyCameras/posts/pfbid02hCs7cDCw7RZkztDJMj6rHkKY8CxSUMYU7FYNM4RmxtMM8mnP9EcSRjgwMAMSfM8bl

I'll post the results when I've got them