S Big STF 8300

[alan potts]

Hope you know something about this.

Now firstly everyone has told me to go mono, but I don't what to, I would be happier with a colour unit.

Now I am looking at this model which is in for sale on Astro B&S by a guy called Tim from Halifax. I have never used Astro before and this is a fair amount of money, is it a respectable site like SGL is.

Secondly are S Big any good and could I use this with my 115mm refractor and my 150mm RC GSO. I know I will need a focal reducer for the GSO.

I could also try it with my Mac/Newt but I know I am undermounted for AP with this scope.

Thridly could I also use it with my LX 200 for planetry on its existing mount. I know I would need at least a X3 Powermate, I have a 2 inch X2 at the moment

Now there are a few questions there to answer please as always fell free to advise and critisize.

Alan.

[alan potts]

Don't know about new CCd looks like I could do with a new keyboard, this one can spell criticise.

Alan

[ollypenrice]

The SBIG 8300 OSC is incredibly slow. One of our guests had one and gave up on it, switching to the mono. (He said his modded DSLR was more sensitive). He and other SBIG 8300 owners whom I know also find the mono slow but they can live with it. I suspect that the small pixels just don't lend themselves to having the Bayer Matrix in front. The Atik 4000 is a good OSC camera but they are quite expensive. The MX25C has a good name.

A webcam will easily beat a DS camera on the planets. Very easily. The download time kills any hope of 'lucky imaging.'

Olly

[alan potts]

Olly it says in the notes it downloads fast, I guess that is what the F is for. It say what an improvement this new model is.

Alan.

[ollypenrice]

Olly it says in the notes it downloads fast, I guess that is what the F is for. It say what an improvement this new model is.

Alan.

Fast by DS standards, maybe, but in planetary imaging the experts use a fast frame camera to get 60 frames per second, etc. That's how you can 'beat the seeing.' SBIG claim 'less than one second' for download which still does not make a planetary camera.

If I were in the market for an 8300 chipped camera it would be the QSI, but I would want to see plenty of resuts from an OSC version before I bit. Harel Boren (I think) did some good colour images with an SBIG 8300 but that was in his ultra fast astrograph, which changes everything.

Olly