Adam J

Honestly the 130PDS does not have a APS-C imaging circle once you go mono, much is hidden by the bayer matrix in terms of corner star quality. To be honest with you I only got good corners on my ASI1600 by spending a large amount of time tweeking the scope. Adam

For some reason lots of people have issues with the OSC version of that camera. The mono seems better though.

Depends on how much moon. Even a 5nm AD like mine will not work close to a full moon.

The moon will not matter. You can just use the Ha portion irrespective of the OIII by seperating them into indevidual channels. So if the moon is up one night all you need to do is take the red pixels and stack them only as Ha signal is only in the red channel. You would have to do this with a Ha filter anyway. In a similar way you can extract the OIII channel too. This is the beauty of a duel band filter. APP does this very well. I dont own one to be clear but I used to use the same technique with a UHC filter. I would try this before you potentially waste money on a Ha filter when you already have one in effect. Adam

Astrodon and Chroma will work at F3 if you can afford them. I would think that a duel band filter would be the way to go with OSC though? https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/stc-astro-duo-narrowband-filter-2.html Just split the channels and you have ha and oiii at the same time far more efficient.

I would go with a 80mm unless you have some reason to want protability. You are going to be traiding detail for a wider view with the ZS61.

its twice the cost....I am not sure any level of customer service would on its own make up for that price difference.

It is about another £300 for some cheaper LRGB filters and a ZWO 5 position wheel ~£160 to start out with a mono camera. It will cost you more than that if you buy an OSC and then trade it in as you will have lost money on it. When I started with mono I litterally got the 80 pound baader beginer LRGB filter set given to me by a friend and to be honest they where still better than a OSC in terms of colour balance. Once you have an electronic wheel then you can just cycle LLLRGB, LLLRGB....and you will always get an image in a single night and it will always be a better imagin in the same time as you would have than with a OSC. The 3000A is a tiny sensor more for lunar and solar imaging to be honest. Maybe closeups on smaller galaxies with medium focal length scopes. You dont want that for DSO imaging. Although you are correct in that a OSC will half the resolution of a mono camera of the same sensor. You need to check out FOV simulator to see what you will fit onto the sensor with your scope. I would strongly push you towards a mono camera, yes the initial outlay is a little more but to be honest its well worth it in the long run. If you like the looks of the Moravian cameras (and I do to) then really only the C1+12000A will give you a decent FOV unless your specifically looking to image smaller targets only the 3000 and 5000 are much smaller sensors and I dont thing they will do what you want. The 9000e well depth is not a problem as they are quoating that at 1.8e read noise and 2.2ADU per electron so the dynamic range with be similar to a ASI1600mm pro at unity but i need to work it out properly. Like I said above if it was me and I was going mono I would give this camera a shot, but I think that if you really want to go OSC I would actually recommend the ASI533mc pro. Adam

What makes you want OSC?

I would say that the build quality of Moravian is better than ZWO they have nicer features and you dont have to send it to china if something is wrong. I think that you would only really go for this in OSC over the ASI294mc pro is you really wanted the smaller pixels 3.45um but did not want to go so far as a ASI183mc pro. My personaly opinion if that this is more interesting as a mono camera than a OSC camera. It is smaller than the 1600mm pro or the 294mc yes but bigger than the 183. Something to bear in mind is that both the 294 and the 1600 sensors have some niggling issues with them. The ASI1600mm pro has a problem with microlensing and the 294 has issues with calibration due to uneven cooling that is effected by the ambient temperature meaning that you can get residual background artifacts after calibration (it also has horrible amp glow). Adam

Saw this on Moravians page recently and was impressed with the price and format. Looks like moravian have announced a new range of cameras the C1+ cooled dedicated CMOS range. https://www.gxccd.com/art?id=590&lang=409&fbclid=IwAR0jpXnbSPkTBRkde_7Qbq5ItAB7-dfQHLPn5dkVrvybVc-K4UTU1u3qNqs These are clearly aimed to compete better on price with the cheap chinese companies. But to my eye the quality still looks like what you would expect from Moravian. The flagship model based on the IMX304 is between the IMX183 and the ASI1600mm pro sensor in size with performance and pixel size similar to the latter. A few other companies like SX and Atik hae IMX304 based cameras on the market but across the board there is a lack of test images, I would really like to give one a shot but to be honest I would need to see a dark frame and some test images first. I have questions, like what is the micro lensing like in comparison to the ASI. The narrower bodies on these in comparison to their C2 and G2 ranges would also make this better suited to hyperstar and RASA imaging. The C1+12000A would be well suited to use on a RASA 8. At 1230 euros, £1100 that is a good way cheaper than the current ASI1600mm pro price. I expect that these will be very attractive and sell well just so long as the microlensing is a little better than the ASI1600mm pro. Example image from a C2 12000A with IMX304 sensor. If I did not already own a ASI1600mm pro I would probably get one of these. The slightly smaller sensor means I could use my 1.25 inch filters without vignetting with a faster scope, I am hoping for less microlensing, still a decent number of pixels at 3.45um despite it being slightly smaller. I would expect a similar QE to the ASI, I think some might worry about the full well capacity, but I note that the read noise is quite low at unity gain so it may still end up with a decent dynamic range. At any rate a really interesting product. Hope FLO decided to offer them. The astonishing thing is that SX are selling their 304 based camera for 2.2k...... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/starlight-xpress-cameras/starlight-xpress-trius-csx-304-cmos-camera-mono.html Adam

Yes you would need a flattner. If you think that 336mm is too short for you there is nothing wrong with that, it means that you would need to go up to something like a Esprit 80 as a step up. Adam

It would but you can use a flattner with it and the 61 is F6 and the reduced GT71 is F4.7 so much faster due to the larger aperture. £1060 with the WO guide scope and the flattner. It would be less with a no reducing flattner. But you will do well either way I would think. Adam

I am not sure that I would go with that package to be honest, although the scope looks like a good bet. It has a colimatable lens cell which I am not sure the WO73 has got and a Zygo test is always a good point...just so long as they have not deactivated all the aberations. I suspect it will be green light only as I find it hard to believe that a polychromatic Strehl of >0.95 is possible from an F6 doublet. I also like it that they have placed the scope on risers. The flatner is a obvious choice and I would go with that. But the thing that makes me thing wtice about the package is that the guide scope setup seems a little overkill to me. I would look and see if there is a simpler and potentially cheaper option avaliable prior to commiting. The other thing to cosider is that its expensive for a doublet. You can have a WO GT-71 triplet from FLO with a reducer and a guide scope for only £100 more. Adam

Carole the issue with that on the 130PDS is it shifts the blance too far forward as the mirror is so much lighter than the 200p or even the 150pds. Depending on how heavy the rest of your imaging kit is you can counter this by buying a couple of long 30cm dovetails to move the rings apart and the CoG backwards. Adam

Owned neither but I would say that the intrinsically the 80mm will have better correction at F7 than the 73mm will at F6 but if you factor a 0.8x reducer into the 80mm that situation is going to reverse. For the same reason I would not be tempted by the new Flat 73R and would stick with a Flat73a going that way. So for wide feild I would choose the 73mm and for smaller targets the 80mm. But to be honest there is not going to be a whole bunch in it performance wise going on specification, there is not much out there on the 80 ED-R 2 and lots of decent images from the WO73. I would also view it as Altair vs WO and in my opinion your choice of retailer matters too and not all will supply both scopes. Cant comment on that directly but do some research and factor it into your thinking. For me its all about how things are handelled when something is not right. Adam

Its probably really tiny changes in tracking between each shot and changes in background levels resulting in veriability / noise in how CCDI is calculating your curvature.

Relax the 1000D temperature sensor is not as accurate as the more recent models and the A/D is not able to produce all values, hence sometimes it skips a little. Mine used to do it too. Adam

The st80 having owned one I found that the 1.25 inch focuser with extention had flex that effected longer exposures it's plastic construction was most likely not helping either. Chucked it and used a 50mm finder ever since.

It's also got a terrible focuser that's prone to flexure.

Suppose so, I just like to reduce weight whenever possible.

Probably overkill, a evoguide 50ed would do the job just fine.

That is what I do. Rather one good image than 10 poor ones.

Atik 16200, but to be honest get the asi6200mm and if the corners are poor..crop them off.

Correct it is intended to work with a dedicated camera, not a DSLR. Adam