Help selecting an 'all round' CCD please

[Ewan]

I am really sorry guys as i know this has been asked before but i really need some guideance.

Hi everyone, as i have picked up some lucrative contracts i am hoping to buy a CCD cam before xmas, there is so much choice i am ending up spending a lot of time look & comparing as many as possible (which is good i guess), images from a the likes of Freddie & Neil using the DMK 21AU618.AS are what i would like to achieve but i also like doing DSO targets as well.

I like the idea of mono but to be honest time is tight sometimes (maybe when i'm older & got up the learning curve a bit more), so would probably be OSC CCD i'd go for, i know my scope is only a C8 but should be able to get some great results, i have been looking at Imaging Source ccd's at the mo like these...............DFK 21AU618.AS Do you really need 60fps ? & res only 640x480, small sensor, DFK 41AU02.AS better res & bigger sensor.

DFK, DMK & i think DBK , is the F - firewire, M - Mono, B ? sorry if it's a daft question.

I think Atik & Starlight are out of my budget range as well.

My budget will be about £500-£700 & no more (honest)

[pete_l]

In principle, for planteary imaging you do need to take a lot of images in a short length of time. The reason is that the planets rotate (some of them quite quickly), so if there's too long between your first and your final image the surface details will have moved too much to register them. So to get lots of images (a goodly proportion of which will be discarded) high frame rates help - but they fill up your hard disk at a phenominal rate.

Also the actual size of a planet on your CCD will be fairly small. Hence the long focal lengths. That also means you don't need large CCDs as most of the pixels on a megapixel++ camera would only see the sky around the planet. However, that's a conflicting requirement for if you want to image other stuff in the sky - which are much less bright than planets and much larger, too.

On that basis, have you considered buying a DSLR? A modern camera is reasonably low noise, it's capable of wide views and the pixel size is comparable to the pixel sizes of DMK cameras. For DSOs that'll give you the wide fields you need and for planets you can record AVIs onto the camera's SD card in movie mode.

Whichever sort of camera you decide to get, you'll need a decent Barlow or Powermate to get your 'scope's focal length into the ballpark range for planetary imaging. A cheap barlow is probably not going to be good enough and could even be so poor that it makes the images look worse.

[Ewan]

Pete i have a 600D (in my sig) so are you saying that will be as good as a dedicated astro CCD like the ones i listed ?, i have tried & had sucess with some DSO's but not what i think i could achieve with a few upgrades ?

[Sammyb]

I don't think there is any such thing as a good "all rounder" when it comes to cameras for astro. Horses for courses. Use your 600D for DSOs and get a DFK or DBK (if you want OSC) for planetary/lunar/solar.

The Atik Titan is advertised as an all rounder within your budget but I struggled with it really. I found it poor on planetary (compared to a £30 SPC900) and although it was OK for DSOs the chip is small so was only good for small targets like M57, M27, M13 etc. I sold it to a chap who was going to use it as a guide camera. I've seen some good results on here with lunar and solar images.

[Zakalwe]

I don't think there is any such thing as a good "all rounder" when it comes to cameras for astro. Horses for courses. Use your 600D for DSOs and get a DFK or DBK (if you want OSC) for planetary/lunar/solar.

The Atik Titan is advertised as an all rounder within your budget but I struggled with it really. I found it poor on planetary (compared to a £30 SPC900) and although it was OK for DSOs the chip is small so was only good for small targets like M57, M27, M13 etc. I sold it to a chap who was going to use it as a guide camera. I've seen some good results on here with lunar and solar images.

Very much this^^

For DSO work the best results come from a cooled CCD to take long exposures. For planetary work you need a camera that can take movies at high speed. The two techniques are diametrically opposed.

[pete_l]

Pete i have a 600D (in my sig) so are you saying that will be as good as a dedicated astro CCD like the ones i listed ?, i have tried & had sucess with some DSO's but not what i think i could achieve with a few upgrades ?

My advice would be to give it a try. If you don't like the results, the money hasn't been spent so you can still go back to Plan A.

It's worth knowing that the 600D has a smaller pixel size than the DMK (4.3 microns vs. 5.6) so you'll get slightly higher resolution from your Canon - both for planetary shooting and for DSOs. Also for DSOs the sensor size on the 600D is about 25 times larger than the DMK's, so you'll get much wider fields and be able to image larger objects.

The DMK is a dedicated high-speed, CCD camera whereas the 600D is an all-purpose camera with a larger, but less sensitive sensor. Both give very good results for what they were designed to do. However, since you already own the 600D I'd say that was a good reason to try it for recording planetary videos to see if they give the sorts of results you are happy with.

Don't forget that the sort of results you mentioned in the OP come with a lot of skill, learned from a lot of sessions - it's not just about what kit you use (or else I could produce images like theirs, too ). Those are also the pick of the crop and I'm sure the people who are rightly proud of them have a whole load more that didn't have the right combination of seeing, luck, circumstances, experience and equipment to compare with their showcase work.

[russellhq]

If you have a search on astrobin, you'll be able to see other images people have taken with your camera.

Here's one of the horse head which says it was taken with the 600D. I just typed 600D in the quick search box and this came up in the results.

http://www.astrobin.com/12830/

[Ewan]

Thanks Russ, brilliant response for my query, the reason i started this thread was mainly i was led to believe my Canon would not be good enough for pics like that link Russ,i use a 6.3 FR so i can get my FL down to about 1280mm, i admit i am still learning & enjoying every minute of it. i have been advised the sensor is not big enough as well so i was a little unsure.

Like this morning i caught a nice vid of Jupiter in B/W instead of colour & i think just the result i got from AS!2 is brilliant without any other processing yet :-),

One last question if i may, with my 600D what resoloution am i best using ? 1920 x 1080, 1280 x 720 or 640 x 480 for long exposure DSO photo's i mean ?

I am percervering with taking longer doing my polar align setup but even i'm thinking about a new mount in a year or two.

Any more ideas tips using my Canon much appreciated thank you all.

[Zakalwe]

Use RAW mode when taking DSO images. That is the best way to preserve details.

[Ewan]

At the next oppertune moment i will try the 1280 x 720 @ 50fps video option on Jupiter against 1920 x 1080 @25fps but using digital zoom then, from what i have read the Toucam with my scope should be able to handle at least 2 minute video length before rotation problems this sound about right ?