Adam J

where did you get the little bag covering the primary end of the tube?

seriously cover that and leave it to rest for a couple of weeks before you put it on or you can end up with all sorts of issues with shrinkage.

You actually dont want to insulate the scope room or you will lose one of the benefits of an obsy, no cool down time.

Its because you dont get 4 x the sensitivity by removing the bayer matrix you get about twice the sensitivity. But as you half the sensitivity by removing the micro lenses you are right back were you started. (this assumes that you bin, if you dont your worse off). However for luminescence its different because you also collect more light per pixel where as in narrow band you actually collect almost no more light on a per pixel basis, perticually so for Ha via red pixels. You may get a bit more of a boost for OIII as it straddles the green and blue pixels without having full transmission to either. But not that much in relation to your effort. You could say you also gain resolution....but in all honesty if you gain resolution then you actually end up with half your original sensitivity. I did this and did some proper scientific testing on the resulting sensor, but you dont have to believe me, sometimes its good to find out for yourself. Cooling your DSLR would be a much more worth while modification.

Honestly have not needed one since I started using my obsy but before that I made a DIY one.

I got one of these working well a couple of years back but to be honest its not that much better for narrow-band due to removing the micro-lenses. It is much better for getting luminescence though.

is the SW coma corrector m48? not T2? Got to admit I was using the Baader MPCC MK3. If it is t2 and just will not fit...thats odd.

The ASI178mm makes me wish they had put a 14 bit a/d on the 183mm. Its on my list for a dedicated galaxy camera at some point down the line, but am hoping something better might be about but the time I can afford it, I am planning on matching it with a 6 inch f6 Newtonian. I have recommended the 178mm as a starting point for DSO dedicated camera imaging on allot of occasions recently. Love your images.

It will probably work but I have always liked the machining quality of the Baader parts, notably their threads, hence why I recommended it.

Problem is that you have not included his 20mm thick filter wheel?

Directly connect the camera male connector to the filter wheel, then use the 21mm spacer included with the camera, then purchase a 7.5mm t-spacer and then connect to the coma corrector giving you a total spacing of 6.5mm + 20mm + 21mm + 7.5mm = 55mm So the only thing that you need that you dont already have is the 7.5mm spacer I find this one to be of good quality. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/baader-t2-extension-tube.html

It's harder to colour balance a osc image also if you would need to refocus between filters on a mono then with the same scope you will end up with chromatic aberration using an OSC by virtue of the face that you can't refocus between colours. The only arguments are cost and omitting a single stage in processing. In all other ways including speed of capture mono is superior.

Depends on what you want to image, for emission nebula I would say 400mm and less would be best with this camera without the pixel scale getting crazy so think 70mm scope at F6. I guess whats what I call short. The WO ZS61 is 360mm so that would be great. The Samyang 135mm is very short and the 183 should be great with it too. For galaxies and planets and planetary nebula i would think this camera would work well at 1000mm or so, assuming you can guide well enough for the image scale and have good seeing. Its all relative though, for instance with my 130PDS at 650mm I would go with the ASI294mc pro every single time its just such an impressive OSC chip. To be honest even with a 430mm scope I would go with the 294 if a OSC...now if mono was on the cards I would take the mono IMX183m over the ASI294, even with my 130PDS.

Astro backyard can be entertaining but at the same time he is a good case of all the gear no idea. Take his most recent video he is still not measuring the back focus on his flattener correctly. Also things like using a duo narrowband filter on a mono camera, when it's specifically designed for osc. In respect to the hypercam I did notice that he returned to using his DSLR before he got the asi294c pro, when was the last time he used his hypercam 183c..? Also look at his Hypercam 183c pictures and you will see uncorrected amp glow to the right hand side. The dumbbell is a good example. In others he crops it out. It's all a great example in why regulated cooling matters. If you want an OSC then the ASI294c is the way to go...unless you are working very short focal lengths in which case the 183 is better. Just be sure to get one with regulated cooling or that amp glow will bite you.

Left mine dry. :)

Great but I will have one last go at trying to persuade you to get a mono lol. I would love to know the reasoning for wanting a color sensor? Being able to use Luminance in LRGB is a massive huge advantage.

Why colour if you dont mind me asking? Mono cameras are vastly higher performance for a similar cost, I use a cheap 60 pound LRGB set with mine so filters dont have to cost the earth. In any case if I was to get a color camera it would be between the QHY168c and the ASI294mc pro especially if you are going to get a scope with a slightly longer focal length later on. While the ASI1600 is great in mono, I have not been blown away by the shots people are taking with the color version. If you are sticking with the lenses and the ZS61 for a while then I think that the ASI183mc pro is probably the way to go due to the smaller pixels being better suited to the short focal length. I would not be tempted to get Altairs first cooled camera hot of the shelf, ZWO had issues with their first cooled attempts with the 1600 and so I would let it mature first.

The question is what do you want to use it for? Deep Sky wide field at a guess looking at your scopes. Assuming that it is this camera: https://www.altairastro.com/Altair-Hypercam-IMX183C-Colour-Astronomy-CMOS-Camera.html Then yes the IMX183c sensor itself is very well suited to the ZS61 and the Samyang 135mm lens due to its small pixels. I would be getting an IMX183 based camera if I had those scopes / lenses. HOWEVER, and its a big however, I would not myself purchase the Altair-Hypercam IMX183C myself because for me, for DSO imaging, it fails on two counts. 1) Its not cooled. Yes it is passively cooled but it has no set point cooling. That means that you will struggle with noise in the spring / summer and more importantly you will struggle to calibrate the amp glow out of your images using darks (a problem with this sensor specifically). 2) Its a OSC not a mono camera. If you live close to Portsmouth than you will experience light pollution and you are better off with a mono camera and although you can do Narrow band imaging using OSC (I have) it will work better with a mono. The two points above represent the pillars of dedicated camera imaging and if you don't have one you had better have the other. Personally I would rank it something like this: 1) Setpoint cooled mono camera 2) Setpoint cooled OSC camera 3) Passive cooled mono 4) Passive cooled OSC (The one you suggest) / DLSR. In essence what I am saying is that I would not consider that camera to be an upgrade from your DSLR assuming that your DSLR is modified then it may actually be better by virtue of having a larger sensor. If you got it I feel you would regret it. Its getting good reviews mainly because its great for Solar and imaging the moon, with the ability to do some DSO. What reviews have you seen? Save your money up and get a set point cooled version of the IMX183c like this: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi-183mc-pro-usb-3-cooled-colour-camera.html or even better a mono version like this: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi-183mm-pro-usb-3-cooled-mono-camera.html or the QHY version from modern astronomy: https://www.modernastronomy.com/shop/cameras/cooled-ccd/qhy-cooled-ccd-cameras/qhy183c/ If you really dont want to spend more than about 600 then I would even recommend the smaller mono ASI178mm-c over the Hypercam OSC or something second hand. Hope that helps, Adam

I seem to recall starting mine at the same time as you. Must me getting close to a year now. ?

I went with a pent roof with a hatch at the tall end to allow it to slide over the scope when opened without collecting it on the way.

Did you do anything to make sure that the draw tube can't be racked too far out of the tube and off the rear bearings?

At 1000mm focal length it will be hit an miss on the tracking accuracy to support a 2.4um sized pixel. Ill be interested to know what you go with in the end.

I would say its definitely unsuitable for that scope the pixels are to small. Down size to a 130PDS and bin a mono 183 2x2 and you will have a good combo...or if you really want OSC I think you would be better off with a ASI294mc pro or better still a ASI071mc pro for the larger field of view...but ditch the 200p in any case. What mount do you use?

Honestly get the mono version not the OSC! The tiny little pixels on the 183 are mainly suited to short focal lengths unless you bin 2x2 and you can only do that with the mono really, what scope are you thinking of using this with? Adam

I never understood why it would be harder to correct C-A in larger apertures does the whole thing not just scale as the scope gets larger at a fixed f-ratio? Is it something to do with the size of the star resolved at the image plain?