SC3 or ATIK16ic

[Martin 2]

Ive been holding off from getting away from the coolpix 4300 but its to limited for deepsky stuff, the cost of upgrading was putting me off as I would need a laptop as well, but Ive had a stroke of luck, I have just ordered a Sony Vaio AR21m with XP, it was on offer as "clearance" perfect condition but spoilt packaging for £217 including delivery, its a high spec laptop so I,m quite pleased, also when I got the scope the guy gave me a bag with bits and bobs in, theres a webcam in there and Ive just looked (forgot all about it) and its a toucam 740 and can be modded to SC3 for £200.00. I don't have a wedge for my scope so would a SC3 be sensitive enough for stacking 35-40 sec exposures of DSI's, or should I go for a Atik 161c or similar?

All advice most welcome

M2

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

The SC3 Mod. uses the same B&W CCD as the 16IC I think, so there would be no difference in sensitivity at all. I'd say get the Toucam modded as you would be able to sell it for more than £200 at a guess if you don't like it.

If you check my website there's loads of the Messier doodahs that I did with the SC3 if you want to see what it can do in unskilled hands.

Captain Chaos

[Martin 2]

Thanks CC

M2

[MartinB]

Depends how much dosh you have Martin. The SC3 would be a great choice with your scope coupled with a Meade 3.3 focal reducer or, even better a fastar system. However the Atik takes you up a level. Much less noise from the cooled chip (SC3's are noisy) but even more important is that it's 16bit as opposed to 8 bit. this really is very significant. The SC3 can deliver 256 different brightness levels (or shades of grey) from black through to white compared with 256x256 (65536) with the Atik. When you do a histogram stretch with a 16 bit image details just keep flooding out unlike an 8 bit.