Imaging Camera

[BEYOND EARTH]

Hello to all,

I was just wondering what a good and somewhat cheap ccd imaging camera would be best for a beginner. I've been using my DSLR and would like to move on to something more light weight.

I was looking at the Orion StarShoot G3 Deep Space Monochrome Imaging Camera. Any help would be great!

Thank you

Richard.

[Daniel-K]

depends on your budget but qhy8's are quite good ive heard or the atik ccd range

[BEYOND EARTH]

nice thank you!

[Mike Hawtin]

Richard, think carefully about the kind of subjects you want to image, the Starshoot G3 is only 752 x 582 pixels and with your scope it will be working at 1.9 arcsec/pixel which works out to a 24 x 18 arcmin field, pretty small for many subjects, you will probably need a focal reducer as well because your scopes native ratio is F11.25 which means loooong exposures on extended objects. Finally being a monochrome camera you will probably want to go on to colour imaging at some point which means more expense for filters and a filter wheel unless you opt for the osc version of the camera. All in all perhaps not the kind of camera you can grow into and use as the heart of a long term imaging set up. Personally if cost is a factor I would buy a good focal reducer and stick with the DSLR while saving for a larger format camera.