Adam J

its identical, but now it wont go on at all if there are batteries in the mount.

Has anyone else noticed that its impossible to put the polar scope cover on if you have batteries in the holders? Nice SW....nice. Adam

Got to be honest in my practical experience most "tilt" issues turn out to be optical collimation issues. Is the pattern changing as you rotate the camera. If it's not then it's tilt. If it is then it is collimation. In a fast flat field refractor it's more likely to be collimation. However looking at the images themselves and ignoring the pixinsight contribution completely it's the bottom left looking soft so you may well have a combination of both issues. Adam

Yes I would want something 4x the area of my laptop monitor to make 4k worth while so that means a 32 inch monitor at about 2.5 feet viewing distace. Adam

My big requirement is that this outperforms my AZ GTI in terms of dec backlash, need to be able to dither and cant on the AZ GTI, so fingers crossed. For the additional cost and it being imaging focused you would hope so. But no one seems to be able to tell me how it performs in that respect so guess ill find out. Adam

If I was able to get a huge scope for small targets I would look at this camera to go with it an go with short exposures. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi-432mm-usb-3-camera.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/stellalyra-telescopes/stellalyra-10-f8-m-lrc-ritchey-chrtien-carbon-truss-telescope-ota.html Something like the above. Adam

interesting, so it screws onto the 3/8inch thread that pokes through from below? Assume that is a 3/8ths, or do you mean it screws directly onto the top plate itself? Adam

How is guiding and dithering working for you?

I think it looks the same but its that centre post that i dont have. Did that come boxed with the mount or the tripod? Adam

The ASI224mc is a good starting place as people have stated above. Adam

Although as above there can be quite allot of variability in the blue cut of a UV / IR filter. However a full spectrum modification is most likely to use a Astromonik Clear Glass anti reflection filter as opposed to a UV/IR cut filter. In which case you need to also apply a UV/IR cut. the question you need to ask them is are they removing original filters from the camera (in a full spectrum mod they should be. Adam Adam

Thanks for the heads up that you are likely to have some left over, have just ordered. Adam

when you got this on Offer from FLO did they include the tripod or was that extra. I have a Ioptron tripod but cant work out if its compatable with this mount. Adam

The product that will replace the ASI air will be the ASI air but not locked to anyones products. It will eventually force ZWO to also open up the ASI air, but until then I dont see much benefit in SX falling into the same trap.

Oven will have dried them out so long as you had it hot enough for long enough. I have had to do that once in four years on my 1600mm pro. But the larger aps-c sensors seem to cause ZWO issues. If it's not sealing and frost it's oil on the sensor. I have always had it in mind that I would buy another brand if I ever got a large chip (unlikely).

ZWO state that poet on the side is not for customer use. Also you can't dry desiccant out like that, it needs to be removed and heated in an oven.

My guess is no simply because frost and consideration normally form dead centre of the chip and that is offset to the side. I think my first move would be to give all optical surfaces a good clean. But to be honest the definitive way to tell is really easy, just take a flat with the cooling turned off.

One word of warning, irrespective of the weight handling with no counter weights. Remember that is lots of mass one one side of the tripod so take care that the COG doesn't move outside the tripod.

If it's made correctly with the correct centre wavelengths, two of which you need to get right on a duel band filter then it should work down to about F3.5-F4 range. But let's be frank if recent independent testing of optolong L-extreme filters is anything to go by at 7nm then I am going to take some convincing that they are capable of producing an even more precise product as required at 3nm. Given that then personally I would be looking at F5 and higher as it gives more room for error unless and until people prove them at faster F-ratios. It's worth remembering that while technology has moved forward until recently only Astrodon and Chroma would attempt 3nm filters at all and those are single wavelength filters. Duel band is much much harder to get right. Am sure FLO and others would replace it if something was wrong. But unless you have a spectrometer or some other kind of filter to perform a side by side comparison with it's going to be difficult to know how it's performing. Looking at Baader they have been forced into binning their filters into three rather than two bins as pre civs YouTube vid. The reason for that he actually gets a little wrong though. The are not binning as such they will be optimising for three different f-ratio ranges. Basically if you design the filters to work over a narrower range by having three filters bands as opposed to two, the result is that you have gained some tolerance in your centre wavelength as it now no longer has to work from F1.8 all the way to F3.5-4. I also suspect that they will now test individual filters as opposed to testing filter wafers before cutting them up. A sensible solution. Adam

Both of those are likely to have a larger secondary relatively than the 150p though.

It's a good camera but I actually think that the larger pixels and smaller sensor of the 294 may be a better bet in this case. My experience is that you will struggle to get good correction into the corners of a mono APSC sensor with small pixels on a F5 Newtonian and the baader corrector. You may do better with a 4 element corrector (I only just managed it with a ASI1600mm pro). I would also worry about vignetting on the 150P unless you have upgraded it to a larger secondary mirror as I believe that the secondary on the 150P is smaller than the 150pds and the one on the 150PDS is arguably already on the small side. Adam

Billy I have seen your many images over the years and your skills are far from meagre you are an accomplished imager. You may not recall but back when you purchased your 16200 it was me that pointed you towards that model and more specifically the discounted one being offered on the OFFERS section of the FLO webpage. So perhapse I am not as anti SX and ATIK or CCD as some seem to believe. However, despite this if you asked the same questing these years later I would push you towards a IMX571 based camera and am sure others would too. Now that's not to say that the 16200 is not a capable camera today. It's just not the best choice in 2022. I am not disputing the quality of the SX product. If you have not chucked out that 178 then there is always a chance I can fix it for you.

Yet according to you I am responsible for destroying the used CCD market. Can't have it both ways. But as above the original point of the thread was to establish if SX are still a active player in thee astronomy camera market, a valid question given their lack of new products recently. Again, Steve has answered that question and now we know they intend to release some new cameras and I have learnt something as a result of this thread. This business about trying to influence them or tell them what to do is a departure for that original topic and irrelevant now we know they will release new CMOS products. But in the event they are listening, IMX533 please.

In essence yes, I am saying that I am disappointed as a consumer that in the last 3-4 years SX have only brought out a Blue version of a camera they originally released quite some years before that. Given that undisputable fact coupled with the fact that I may be interested in a IMX533 based camera in the next few years I am asking myself and others here if I should expect anything from SX in the future. Because if not then I am forced to buy from someone else offering the product that I am interested in. If anyone for SX happens to read this thread (doubt they will) I am saying to them that I am interested in buying from a UK company with UK support but am not interested in their current camera line up, but they can have my money if they updated their product range. Most good companies would accept that as constructive and valued customer feedback. I get the impression that you are a fan of their products, are you saying that if they bring out new CMOS products you would not be interested in them?

Ok now your just being rude. But for the record it's my opinion that well educated and informed consumers holding companies to account is beneficial to the hobby as a whole. The idea that we as consumers should lay back and be grateful for what we are given is not one I can subscribe to.