gorann

Getting a guide camera in a guide scope (or OAG) run by PHD2 to work is one of the easiest parts of astrophotography and I cannot imagine not being able to see the guide curve to know if guding is at least as good as I can get it, and to find out ways to improve it, at least until the next session. Guiding is one of the most critical parts of astrophotography. A gadget like the Staraid Revolution cannot be made for someone striving to make progress in imaging efforts. Having said that I do use and see the advantage of a digital polar scope, like the Polemaster or iPolar, that I have on my mounts. But polar adjustment and guiding are two different things, and you need a constant watch over guiding.

I just joined the club and pushed the button for the QHY268M from Modern Astronomy. Bernard promised that shipping to Sweden would be no problem, I hope he is right🥴

Looks very very promising Adam! Hope your sky remains clear. Here there is some hope later in the week.

I would put in a Ha filter - if dual band works so well then single band would work too.

Yes, you must be very pleased with that first light Adam! It is an amazing camera. Did you use darks and if if you did do you think they made a difference?

I am also very tempted and a bit confused. The tilt plate (as seen on the QHY site) looks different between the M and C models - does anyone know why and what consequence it may have for adjusting tilt. I worry that it cannot be adjusted without removing the camera, especally on a RASA.

Thanks for the positive words Peter! Yes, it is framed a bit differently to say it gently - I hoped to be lucky in that the RASA could make something pop out of that dim dark nebulosity centrally that I though I saw on Aladin Sky Atlas. Still, it did find something😉

Thanks, much appreciated!

Even with a RASA and ASI2600MC the blue signal in the IDAS NSX filter is very very faint so you may need a dark site in addition to a lot of careful stretching of the blue channel. This is a great reult Martin with a lot of structure in the squid! Not a lot of star colour and I get the same when working with a Ha and Oiii filters on a mono camera. Somehow the NSX dualband filter on the ASI2600MC automatically gives me what looks like rather natural star colours. Don't know why.

Gain is apparently on a different scale with QHY. I wonder about using darks with this sensor. One reason why I do not use them appart from the fact that there is zero amp glow and they do not seem to be needed is that I worry they could possibly do more harm than good as they introduce an additional step i the data processing and may add to S/N ratio, but maybe that is superstition. They are easy enough to do and use as a master dark and I use them on my ASI1600MM and ASI071MC, where there is amp glow and they are really needed.

Rained in so worked a bit on the image to make it a bit more contrasty and interesting

Thanks a lot Martin!

Hi Adam, I am not using darks since the darks I took when I first got the camera vere essentially completely black. They may be needed if I get forced to start using flats (as Dave suggests) but so far my system is so clean that I do not really need flats and the little vignetting I may have is dealt with using Gradient Exterminator of DBE. I use gain 100. Initially I tried gain 0 but I had a subjective impression that gain 100 gave a better image with the same total integration time. The curves from ZWO shows that dynamic range is alsmost the same at gain 0 and 100 but read noise is much lower at gain 100 (I assume you have seen those curves). I have set offset to 30 but that is just arbitrary (think I did it becasue I was recommended to use 30 on my ASI071) and it seems to work fine. I usually run it at -15°C so the cooling system does not have to work too hard.

Just read that CN thread and there is a lot of uncertainty about the correctness of the QE curves. And when comparing the performance of this camera (ASI or QHY) to the closest predecessor, the ASI1600MM, it wins an all accounts, including chip size, dynamic range (16 bit), more well depth, no amp glow, no micro lensing, and certainly more QE.

This turned out to be a slightly odd composition and framing. Not my finest. I had hoped for more spectacular dark nebulosity in the center of the image. This is a two panel RASA image with some particularly uninteresting sky cropped away at the top (sorry all of you living in those worlds). I also added a bit of old refractor data I had on IC63 (The Ghost in Cassiopeia) and Sh2-187 to sharpen them a bit. It may be worth pointing out that Sh2-187 appears to be part of a rather interestingly looking ring-like structure of dark nebulosity seen to the right of the image. Facts: RASA 8 on an iOptron CEM70 with and ASI2600MC camera (gain 100, -20°C). No filters. 96 x 4 min exposures, so 6.4 hours.

Oh, that is very pleasing to they eye - great image!

I am tempted to get one especially since I just sold one of my ASI1600MM. I have never used a QHY camera for imaging (only guiding). I have a bunch of ASI cameras and feel comforatble with them so I am leaning towards an ASI2600MM. Looking at the QHY site I cannot figure out if they have a capture software for it. ASI has the ASI studio, which works (kind of). QHY has something called System Pack. Is that an imaging software? It seems a bit odd to sell a camera without software.

Good to know Steve! That is close enough to the early-bird QHY price to make some loyal customers decide to wait for the ZWO.

@GrantAny chance of posting a recording of the talk since I unfortunately missed it?

Steve, how does the resolution of your Esprit 150 images compare to your RASA data? I would have expected more resolution with the Esprit but when I compare it to my first light with only 2.6 hours with the RASA (https://www.astrobin.com/0kff02/C/) I do not see a difference in resolution. Maybe aperture wins over focal length here? Makes me worried since I also have an Esprit 150. Could of course be related to different sky conditions / Bortle between our sites. In the crop below, your Esprit image is to the left.

German and UK tax are essentially the same. My US comparison was just to compare the two brands under the same tax.

What I do not understand is why the price for the ASI version is so very much higher, 2895 Euro = 2620 GBP on pre-order from TS with delivery 15 March. That is more expensive than the colour version at TS (2486 Euro). By contrast, the British dealers sell the QHY mono version even cheaper than the colour version, and for nearly 900 pounds less than the ASI at TS. Maybe someone at FLO @FLO can enlighten us what is going on and when they will start taking pre-orders for the ASI2600MM and what the UK price will be. To add to the price confusion, OPT in San Diego sells the QHY268M for $2,095 and the ASI2600MM for $2,280, so less than 200 GBP difference

Has anyone gone for the pre-order of the QHY268M yet? How long does the pre-order price last? The UK price for pre-order price from Astrograph.net (1799 GBP) seems much better than what I can see on EU sites like TS. Is it only Astrograph.net selling it in the UK? Never bought anything from them. Are they OK? I assume no one has seen the ASI2600MM on pre-order yet. Maybe I am getting tempted.......

This month I have sold an ATIK460Ex mono CCD and bought my second ASI2600MC CMOS OSC. It took me half a year to find a buyer for the CCD while I could only find one company that had the CMOS in stock......

You should get one of each Steve so we all can find out if it is worth the trouble with filter wheels and dusty filters😉