Adam J

Are you sure its not sensor tilt? The way to tell is by rotating the camera relative to the scope, if the bad stars stay in the same corner then its not the scope, its something else in your imaging chain. Adam

My question is do you have the ZS81 on order at the same time? If so when?

For me 4k is very very useful when processing a 2x2 mosaic made using a asi1600mm pro thats allot of pixels and hence resampling even with a 4k display. With a normal 1080p display you are only ever going to see a tiny little bit of the image at full resolution. Important stuff if you goal is to make prints of your work. I don't think that they make 4k monitor s in smaller size than 27inches?

That end wall behind the desk is crying out for a 32 inch 4k monitor.

Congratulations on this one really like it, very different from the normal pallet, especially like the contrast in the fox fur. Your imaging has really come on leaps and bounds in the last couple of years.

I lined mine with OSB3 to save money.

I used that color on the exterior or my little obsy.

Shorter subs are both a downside and an advantage, I dont like 15min subs getting ruined by as gust of wind.

Yes, you are correct....only just seen that. I hope that they have found a way to extend that as if it cant go over 30 seconds then that has two implications. 1) Whats the point in cooling it? 2) Who on earth is going to pay £2k for a cooled planetary camera? and if its for microscopy then why bring it to an astronomy show. When I talked with them I made it clear our discussion was in the context of DSO imaging. Maybe it has a trigger mode that is not quoted for? Maybe its so low noise they dont think it will need more than 30 second exposures. Interesting though! Adam

I guess I was hoping for more comments / analysis of the potential of a IMX304 camera when I started this thread, but it seems to have slipped into a comparison of different manufacturers customer service. Possibly the least interesting aspect of choosing a camera.

Fair enough. The only thing that made me raise an eyebrow in that was the concept that a camera manufacturer has "followers" lol. I have no loyalties its all about the product and the price for me.

No its an opinion not presented as fact. Hence me saying "my feeling is" On the other hand: "Asi1600 cameras have dark frames subtracted on camera so the data that arrives on your laptop isn't actually RAW data but already has dark frame subtracted to limit the amp glow." Is a statement of supposed fact repeated here without supporting evidence. Although andyboy1970 does qualify it with "if true". In any case clearly whatever they are doing with on camera calibration does not matter as the Panasonic sensor is a good performer as evidenced by results. Adam

I dont get it, your signature says you own two ASI camera and a QHY camera? It sounds like you have had experience of SX falling over themselves to resolve your issues. I cant comment at all on ZWO customer service having had no issues....lots of people own them and I hear very few complaints. Adam

And exactly how does it derive this dark frame without someone covering the camera sensor up? Are we suggesting that the camera as dark frames stored for every temperature / gain / exposure length internally and applies it to the image....I dont think so. Also consider this, in comparisons between the Atik Horizon, QHY163m and ASI1600mm pro all three have been shown to have close to identical amp glow and dark current performance. Or are we saying that all three manufacturers are using the same technology 'sneaky' technique?...I don't think so. Hence I think we can conclude if something is going on then it is happening on the Panasonic chip and nothing to do with the camera manufacturer. Take a look: http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/atik_vs_zwo/ The problem with off the cuff remarks and the internet is that before you know it everyone quotes everyone else and a rumor becomes an accepted fact. Personally I don't care what my ASI1600mm pro does with calibration or does not do with calibration, it works and works well. My impression is that it is more sensitive than my friends 460ex while having a larger sensor at a cheaper price. None of this is relevant to the IMX304 camera being discussed, as I said I actually admire them for going in a slightly different direction. I live and work in the UK and want UK companies to make high quality competitive products. My advice above is simply that I think that they will make more money by reducing their per camera margins and selling more cameras as a result, it might even be worth selling at a slight loss to gain initial market penetration. The ASI1600mm pro is undeniably hugely popular and they need to attract people away from that camera before then can sell their camera, they made a good start by offering a unique (for now) product, the slam dunk is if they can offer it at an attractive price taking into account the competitions product. Adam

Yes, but if you don't have the extra to spend the choice that leaves you is this: Am I going to get a dedicated camera or not bother getting one at all?

Not sure about very long focal length unless that is also implying very slow F-ratio in which case longer exposures will be required.

The longest Luminance sub I have ever felt the need to do from my 5/6 location is 30 seconds. Higher than that then I would think 15 seconds is not a bad idea. All this talk of 3 or 4 min exposures only makes sense in a very dark site.

Problem for them is that others will make it cheaper if they price too high.

Just back from the Practical Astronomy Show and saw three prototype CMOS cameras from Starlight Xpress, the one that really attracted my attention used the SONY IMX304 chip with 3.45um pixels, 12.3mp, 1.1 inch, global shutter, 62% QE, 12bit A/D. It was visibly larger than a IMX183 sensor and the ICX694. They claim to have improved amp glow performance of the chip by altering the default clock speed and indicate ~2e read noise. The design of the camera body looked almost identical to their current Sony chip CCD cameras. They indicated an expected cost of about ~£2k Personally I would have hoped for slightly cheaper if it is to appeal in comparison to the '1600' based cameras and it places it in competition with the SX-694 in terms of price and sensor size which may or may not be a bad thing as if it performs very well it could potentially be the death of ICX694 based cameras. If they could just bring the price down to the £1750 region then it would be extremely attractive. I like their approach, the market is currently saturated with Panasonic based sensors like the Atik Horizon and the ASI1600mm pro not to mention the IMX183 cameras, did we really need another one? By offering a different product not yet released by other companies and skipping the Panasonic chip they are likely to get more traction in the CMOS market. Time will tell. Adam J

I can 100% confirm to you that you will not have sufficient back-focus to accommodate the clicklock I tried it and it did not even work with a Baader MPCC MKIII and that does not change the focus position like the SW CC does. By moving the primary mirror an uncomfortable distance up the tube I was able to just...and I mean just reach focus with my LRGB filters but I was not able to reach focus with my thicker astrodon narrowband filters. I was not comfortable with leaving the primary hanging like that as I did not believe that it would hold colimation. You could try pairing it with a Explore Scientific Coma corrector as that moves the focus out 3.5cm....but that's an expensive game to play. Adam

Any 50mm guide scope will do, I use an orion finder guider. I also got a longer 33cm dovetail top and bottom of the rings to move the center of Gravity backwards. The finder guider is mounted to the rear of the top dovetail. Adam

Great image, my only suggestion would be to nudge the green channel down slightly as i think its a little bright relative to red and blue. Adam

Really like this never seen the tidal tails on this target before.

I think I got them for 50% off from Homebase.

I used this: https://www.floormats.co.uk/interlocking-rubber-flooring-tiles it is expensive...but then my obsy is small. However, its also much better than the kind of tiles you linked previously as those tend to be more foam than rubber and are not very hardy. I dropped my coma corrector on it and it just bounced with no damage. Adam