PlankWithANailIn

If your imaging setup has vignetting and most do then you would expect see a gradient, the only way to be sure is to use it against real data and see what happens.

He's saying that there is a point where exposure length simply won't improve the signal to noise ratio by a significant amount anymore. The max signal to noise ratio is determined by all noise factors the biggest of which is light pollution and then read noise (when stacking) and then thermal noise and then shot noise. If you live in a city like 82.9% of UK citizens do then light pollution is by far and away the biggest driver over how good your images could possibly be and that limit means there is simply no point going for long exposures, short exposures then mean that other noise apart from read noise is consequently even less important. No one is arguing that cooling the camera to remove thermal noise isn't always better they are just saying for those of us that live in the real world of light pollution is just not that important as we can't take those long exposures needed to see any benefit. Most of us would do better trying to remove the effect of light pollution via filters first before buying anymore equipment. Once thats done long exposures become a reality for us and we can start caring about thermal noise. Additionally most of us will be coming from older DSLR's, going to an uncooled modern IMX sensor will already significantly increase our quantum efficiency and reduce the amount of all noise sources in our images compared to what we are used to. They won't be the best but they will be way better.

Has anyone tried running one of these from a 13.8v supply?

You can get a version of the Pi OS that turns the Pi Zero and HQ camera into a webcam. https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/raspberry-pi-makes-great-usb-webcam-100 I was going to suggest IMX290 USB modules from Aliexpress but they have shot up in price from £25 and free postage when I bought one in April last year to £40. You need an adapter to C mount and they only get half a second exposure but I find that works just fine on my guidescope. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33009237481.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.0.0.705a1802F6ki6c I had fun designing a case for it and shortening the USB cable to the exact length needed for my setup. Not sure its worth it as fun project when the prices are so high.

A 2 port USB hub is not worth £400.

This is literally an example of lighting regulations being used....this is what lighting law in action looks like.

W&W heaters are cheaper to buy on their eBay store due to free postage. I have 4 and they are all great.

I bought an equivelent cable from Ali express for less than half the price of FLO's. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000610764393.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4dMrXcen Absolutely crazy charging £24 for a USB to Serial connection and cable. This one comes with a choice of colours and cable lengths too.

Ricochet's second image shows there is still an issue if the clips are removed. It looks to be a problem with the very edge of the mirror causing detraction blur/spikes and the clips causing a shadow within that blurry/spiky zone. Cover the edge of the mirror => no diffraction => clips won't show as shadows in diffraction because its not there anymore. Still leaves the question of how much to cover, I'd assume the just the very edge.

I think when they initialy tried to sell it they wanted way too much money. For my set up I think it would be ok as I use a DSLR for taking images. For guiding and mount control the weak CPU and memory will be just fine but some high resolution image capture might be an issue. The video is great but his concerns about dew probably aren't valid. The PCB's on these things will probably be above ambient temperature. They could also be conformally coated, if not you could do it yourself for a tenner. ￡374.70 delivered in a useful form factor...it's interesting. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33015991006.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.38de1e30YKLfg8&algo_pvid=9c20f345-a16a-431f-924e-66a635c18fad&algo_expid=9c20f345-a16a-431f-924e-66a635c18fad-0&btsid=0b0a0ae216179856043846373ed0be&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

Altair cameras are rebranded Touptek so I don't think differentiating them using "genuine" is 100% accurate.

Why do you need USB3 with an all sky camera? It's not going to take high framerate images and it doesn't really matter how long it takes to download the image for time-lapse. If a USB2 cable works good enough just use a USB 2 cable.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/startravel/skywatcher-startravel-102t-ota.html For £10 more you can get much larger aperture, a proper bracket for a finder, a RD finder, an erecting prism, a couple of eyepieces and a proper dovetail mount.

The C5 weighs 6kg according to celestron's website. Once you add other items to it its going to be really overweight for the az-gti. As an AZ-GTi owner I would like to know how it works for you.

How did you get it to work with your dslr?