Dmk On Dso's

[Mamsoth]

I'm currently considering selling my Atik 2-hs to finance a Dmkau618.as. Obviously the Dmk will outperform the Atik on planetary targets, I'm just curious as to whether it will outperform the 2-hs on longer exposures (of about 10/20 seconds) for imaging the occasional planetary neb or such.

Cheers

Matt

[rawhead]

Was thinking the same thing myself

Just had a ICX618ALA CCD put in my AU04...

[Mamsoth]

Would really appreciate any input at all

[rawhead]

Have you seen this thread?

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-deep-sky/76494-deep-sky-dmk.html

[Mamsoth]

I had seen that thread Jon, I wonder which DMK he was using? Have u had a chance to use your camera with the ICX618ALA yet?

[rawhead]

The firewire version of the DMK 21AU04.AS Mono (not sure if it's still available?)

Not got my cam back yet. Spoke to Andy on Friday and he said it would be posted either today or tomorrow.

Can't wait to try it out. I bet all these clear skies will vanish

[riklaunim]

DMKs can work nice on some DSO objects. The key is to capture a lot of frames on few sec exposures. The gain should also be limited as much as possible (if you can do 10-20 sec exposures then do them with lower gain and not shorter with higher gain).

[Mamsoth]

DMKs can work nice on some DSO objects. The key is to capture a lot of frames on few sec exposures. The gain should also be limited as much as possible (if you can do 10-20 sec exposures then do them with lower gain and not shorter with higher gain).

I'm already quite limited with exposures as I mainly use a dob with an eq platform, I'm really hoping the sensitivity of the ICX618ALA will allow me to cut exposure times significantly, compared with the ICX 424 on the atik 2-hs. I'm not very techy so I haven't done a comparison between the two chips (I'm afraid the numbers wouldn't mean much to me) but I would expect the dmk to be significantly more sensitive than my current camera

[Mamsoth]

Can't wait to try it out. I bet all these clear skies will vanish

Yeah that would be typical

I'd be interested to know how you get on with it all the same Jon, I'll keep a look out in the imaging section if you'll be posting any pics?

[riklaunim]

Then use a mini EQ mount and a CS lens With a 8 mm lens and H-alpha filter put on top of it I got this: Orion and Rosetta | Flickr - Photo Sharing! with the old DMK21.

[Mamsoth]

Nice image Riklaunim. Do you reckon the Icx618 (in the dmk) will outperform the ICX 424 (which I believe is the chip used in the atik 2-hs) on exposures of about 5-10 seconds?

[riklaunim]

It will have higher sensitivity (QE) and will have the advantage of higher gain (8 bit vs 16 bit camera) - but also a dark frame will be highly recommended.

[Mamsoth]

It will have higher sensitivity (QE) and will have the advantage of higher gain (8 bit vs 16 bit camera) - but also a dark frame will be highly recommended.

Thanks, I just wanted to make sure I'm doing the right thing in selling my Atik 2-hs for a Dmk21au618, I knew it would be better for planetary images but wasn't sure about longer expoures. It seems I'd be better off all round with the Dmk

Cheers for the help

Matt