Northernlight

Hi Michael,

At the moment i dont know as i've having a nightmare just to get UPS to pick up my camera to be able to send it to QSI /Atik.  from the amount of smoke that came from the camera i'm not hopeful, hence expecting the worse and just trying to see what my options are, and hence the post so i can see real world results from people who have OSC cameras with Quad Band Filters, so i can decide of i want to stick mono or go down the OSC route for simplicity.

Hi All,

I'm in a position where i may need to purchase a new camera and i'm toying with the idea of a OSC as my main interest is galaxies & comets. I would however like to still be bale to do some narrowband and whilst i appreciate that this would be at a much lower resolution than mono chips - I'm very interested to see the result people are getting using these new Quad band filters with their OSC camera.

To help me make my decision, I would love to see results that people have managed to get using these filters as i never trust marketing images supplied by the manufacturers.

Rich.

Anyway i think we have strayed a little off topic - so back to the subject at hand - i dont think anyone can predict what will happen over the next 2 years but i do think CCD Chips have had their day and will eventually all be phased out in favour of CMOS chips which will be driven largely by the consumer digital camera market.

Will Cmos Astro camera's releases be predominantly OSC vs Mono - who knows - I certainly hope not. So i will certainly be watching the camera market with great interest to see where the trends take the astro camera market

4 hours ago, Adam J said:

I would be shocked if a KAF8300 based camera did not outperform the QHY268 in narrowband so long as you can do the 30min subs that it requires.

Adam, the QSI 683 doesn't need 30 mins subs to get good results - I live under bortle 6 skies and have managed some decent images.

I took all of these with 600s subs on my qsi 683 -  and they were all about 10-12  frames per channel. - and i'm no expert at processing by any means but managed to get do ok using 600s subs, well except for the last image - got a bit carried away with the processing and it's a bit overcooked and and a bit in your face - never the less - QSI683 produces some nice images with relatively small amounts of data.

7 hours ago, Adam J said:

Yes sensor size matters. Just be sure that you can live with the microlensing on the ASI1600mm pro. 

Well i lived with it on the QSI 683, as does every other Kaf8300  owner as i'm pretty sure the chip has Microlenses

Well it's seems good enough for imagers producing some top class images and seeing there is currently no alternative available in a similar size format then i dont have much choice at the moment.

If Atik / QSI comes back with a price where it's not economically viable to repair my beloved QSI then i think i will just get an ASI1600mm-Pro as a lot of the current sony mono chips are a step backwards for me  - They are much better with respect to noise but i loose too much real estate.

I also stumbled across a very interesting real-world comparison between the QSI 683(Kaf8300) and the QSI690 (IMX814) from Sara Wager - showing her direct comparisons of her own data she found that the KAf8300 actually produced cleaner images with less noise - despite the specs of the camera specs saying otherwise. This is very interesting coming from one of the words most respected imagers.

https://www.swagastro.com/real-world-comparison---kodak--sony-chip.html

Rich.

2 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

Shame it's not as simple as just telling the system to skip this step for x number of times as a Friday night special.

If only it were that simple - But the reality is that manufacturers wont make changes unless there is enough money it in for them to make it worth their while.

Imagine you are a car manufacturer and you only make red cars by the thousands - then one day someone comes along and asks you to make 5 blue cars at the same price. To make the blue cars, you need to buy blue paint and then remove all the red paint from all the machines & clean down and flush out all the pipes to get rid of the red paint, and swap all the machines over to blue paint and then do it all over again once you've finished making the 5 blue cars - so you've went to all that effort and instead of making money you lost money during all the downtime making the changes between red paint & blue paint and then back again.

I have wondered this myself - but usually in the manufacturing industry - productions lines are setup to run in a very specific way and making changes or deviating from the process can very time consuming & costly - i.e. you need maintain 2 separate production processes as well as 2 different testing & QC processes and changing between them drastically reduces your operating effectiveness (OEE) which gets very expensive really fast.   

So to my mind - this would be the main reason

Well i certainly hope you are right, but i think the future of Astro camera will be driven by consumer grade cmos digital cameras and not buy industrial applications .

Looking at IMX 540/542 - i dont see theses being useful to be used in Astro imaging as they 2.7 micron pixels and a well depth  of 10,000e so they will saturate very quickly.

8 minutes ago, alexbb said:

There are a few sensors on the market, but not yet used in astro cameras. https://canon-cmos-sensors.com/canon-120mxs-cmos-sensor/

Hi Alexbb,  yes you will see new sensors - but like the cannon one you shared a link for - they are very very specific Niche chips for very specific industries and not intended for mainstream consumer market and will be very very expensive.

12 minutes ago, Adam J said:

I am simply saying that there is not going to be an lack of mono sensor avaliability because there are applications (many many applications) that simply cant be performed at all with OSC sensors and many of those are high volume applications leading to cheap sensors.

Hi Adam,

I understand where you are coming with a lot of your rationale - But having worked in high speed manufacturing on the It & Integration side of things for the last 23 years covering many different industries - i can tell you the demand from these sectors are not high at all - with most manufacturing or medical facilities installing either high speed or mono camera solutions into production /logistics or medical equipment which will most likely remain unchanged for at least 10-15 years - with these types of camera being produced in very small quantities at very very high prices any usually with long order times - So i must politely disagree with your comment about high Volume - as i have 23 years of 1st hand experience that says otherwise.

I agree with Grant -  Nobody is saying that there wont be any new Mono camera's in the future - just less of them in favour of OSC cameras. and i think there is evidence of that starting to happen already.

But getting back to the topic at hand - "If" this does turn out to be the future trend - Then where does this leave us in regards to Narrowband Imaging  ? So far from what i've seen from OSC  cameras using these quad band filters  - it aint a pretty site. - who knows maybe i haven't seen any good examples yet - and another thing £1200 for the Triad Ultra Quad band filter- are they having a laugh - that's the price of the ASI1600MM-Pro

If there was a way to get half decent Narrowband from a OSC then i would buy the ASi2600MC-Pro tomorrow to replace my beloved QSI 683, but i just dont think it's a reality.

Rich.

And this is my concern - where mono is easily accessible to everyone at the moment at a very reasonable price (e.g. ASI1600MM-Pro)  the future of Mono looks very bleak  and i think this transition may already be starting to happen , and if we stick with ZWO as an example and look and their new camera line up. We have the 6200, 2600 & 533 cameras - with all of them being colour, with the exception of the expensive 6200 which is available as a mono full frame option.

If this is a sign of future trends then Mono cameras could become out of reach for a lot of Astro consumers as Full frame cameras are expensive, then factor in  a 2" filter wheel and the cost of the associated 2" filters then you are entering into the realms of big bucks with Mono setups potentially costing upwards of £6000 - £7000. Also you may need to factor in the cost of a new PC as trying to process the files from full-frame camera that are over 60 mega-pixels  will take a lot of storage and a fairly powerfull pc with a decent amount of ram.

If the industry does in fact go this way it will be a sad future.

I was enjoying it until the electrical surge in my obs took out my £4500 QSI camera - hence looking for a more robust mechanism for power distribution with a bit more protection

So where does this leave us with Narrowband Imaging ? - If mainstream camera manufacturers are mainly focusing on OSC - then are we likely to only see mono sensors in very high end specialised cameras.  I hope this doesn't happen as i think it would be a big step backwards for Astro Imaging. 

Hi All,

My beloved QSI 683 recently died and is being sent away to see if it can be repaired, but expecting the worst i started researching new camera to replace the QSI.  Looking at the camera market with a modest budget of around £2000 - i noted that the choices for mono camera were a bit limited.  The most obvious choice for a chip with near identical size to the QSI 683 was the ASI1600MM Pro - which i know is a very popular choice, but i'm weary of buying this camera as i know it's end of life.

I spoke to Astro Reseller Ianking about the choices, and he recommended the SX Trius 694 which looks like a great mono chip with very low noise - but it's a much smaller chip than the QSI. With no direct replacement in sight for the ASI 1600 - we talked about the future of camera and Ian said the in the future he expected to see less & less mono camera and that most new camera would most probably be OSC.

So this got me wondering about the future of Narowband imaging - Where does this leave us if most new sensors will be OSC ?

Hi Whirlwind  - i wasn't sure if there were specific Astro events like Euopean Astro show / NEAF etc, where new camera might be unveiled.  I think Sony is releasing a bunch of new sensors in june / july - so not sure if we'll see any new camera this year.

I've got a few months until Astro Dark returns - so no hurry to make  a decision just yet.

I'm happy to have the Mods close out the thread.

Hi Phil,

Thank you for your aggressive response - I was not putting mark down nor implying any issues with the mount - I was simply asking a question if weather or not others has heard of a 35kg version and if you read up in the posts i was actually defending mark and admitting that i had unfairly been one of his biggest critics..

6 hours ago, Neil27 said:

Well put Derek.

And just for the naysayers in this thread, here is some evidence at least that the Trident mount (previously OGEM) has been spotted in the wild.
At least another mount brought to the market can only benefit us, the end user for having more choice.

Hi Neil,

I had someone message me as saying that the mount that has been delivered apparently only has a 35kg payload. Take this with a very big pinch of salt as i have no way to validate this claim, but wondered if anyone else has heard anything similar.

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the invite - unfortunately with 2 young kids i seldom get a chance to stray too far, so i tend to be quite a solitary astronomer

Is there any specific time of the year when new camera are launched ?  or do manufacturers just release at different intervals ?

I might just have to go with the ASI1600mm Pro - maybe see if i can pick one up second hand as an interim measure if there is nothing else around.  It's just a shame that Sony didn't release a mono version of the IMX571 found in the ASI2600, as it's a large chip at a good price point on the ZWO.

In the past i've been one of his most vocal critics for this very reason, and to be fair to Mark i've been unfairly harsh with some of my comments.  I think Mark is just extremely disorganised and has just made some bad decisions along the way, such as the original choice of controller before finally adopting Sitech Controllers. Why he didn't just adopt the tried and tested SiTech controllers from the start is beyond me.

I think he has lost of a lot of trust and has an awful lot of work to do to restore it, but hopefully he will get past it and we will see a new mount on the market to bring more competition to the established players which ultimately helps us all in the long run.

Derek,

I think you have hot the nail on the head so to speak. I think Mark @ JTW is capable of some very good work,  he just appears to be terrible at planning & communication. He could have saved himself a lot of grief and hassle if he got someone else to help out with that side of things so that he could focus purely on the engineering side of things.

I think he promised that the mounts would be with people at the start of June, so hopefully people will start to get them soon and will be happy with them after the long long wait.