Monochrome VS. Color CCD Cameras

[Gina]

Very nice.

Very similar set up to me except the focuser What's the piece of wood doing atop the EQ6?

Nice horizon there in the background....

Steve

Thank you Steve

I put that piece of wood on there to mount some of the parts when I was using water cooling for my 1100D. Since then I've had various things mounted on it including my dew heater controls, not being replaced with a smaller box mounted on the dovetail contaiing an Arduino control for 4 dew heaters. I'll take some more photos soon.

That direction is slightly south of east and is the best viewing direction Round past south is also pretty uncluttered except for a large distant(ish) oak tree rising to about 15 degrees above the horizon. To the SW there is LP from a town 5 miles away.

Happy Christmas

[kirkster501]

I really enjoyed participating in this thread and reading the expert opinions from the likes of Steve, Olly, Gina and others. I remain convinced that OSC will be the one for me but we really went though the issues here

Merry Christmas everyone.

Rgds, Steve

[ollypenrice]

I agreee with all the points in Olly's excellent summary of the pros and cons .... and agree that a dual setup would be the ideal way to make the most of the rather infrequent good spells we get in the UK.

I'd just like to make one point, though, about the 'LRGCloud' frustration when using mono camera plus filters. If you're fortunate enough to have a scope that doesn't require a focus change between filters (and I've found that to be the case with the MN190 for example) then it's possible using Maxim or similar to control camera and filter wheel to minimise this problem. Rather than imaging long runs of one colour at a time you can program an imaging sequence that goes R,G,B,R,G,B.R,G,B .... etc. so that, if your session is brought to an abrupt end, you will still have a balanced (albeit smaller) set of R, G and B images and not be left missing one filter entirely. I always work this way, doing RGB on the poorer nights and saving the better nights for long runs of luminance or Ha.

Olly, I know you're not keen to control things unnecessarily via the PC, but this is one instance where a PC-controlled filter wheel is a real benefit.

Adrian

Yes, perfectly true. The only caveat is that blue and lum are best shot high up but your point is very sound. I think that provided the scope holds focus the critical thing is parfocality. I find my Baaders truly parfocal even at F3.9.

But.. I can see the psychological attraction of feeling that each sub is contributing squarely to the night's result. And after all, we are doing this for pleasure, so the psychology matters!*

Olly

*Hear about the massochist who liked to give himself a cold shower every morning? So he gave himself a warm one. (David Frost, circa 1963!! )

[Gina]

As promised earlier in this thread, here's a photo of the Atik camera and FW attached to my ED80. This is not actually set up for working ATM though should a clear night appear if will only take a few minutes to sort out the cables. The Atik kit is easily relpaced with the Peltier cooled 1100D box when I use that.

On top of the ED80 is an ST80 plus QHY5 guide system. Below the ED80 is an ali plate with two 1100Ds and 200mm Vivitar prime lenses which make up my widefield rig. This is either osc or NB depending on which filters I put in the cameras (Ha/OIII or CLD CCD clip filters). The cameras have cold finger cooling to just above ambient with CPU coolers on the back.

[Gina]

I'm working one a small box for power distribution and dew heater control that will be mounted on the other side of the ali plate from the widefield cameras. I shall also be mounting a powered USB hub on there too. These will minimise the number of cables going across the mount.

[opticalpath]

That's an impressive imaging array, Gina. And some set of cables to sort out !! (I thought I had problems but .....!)

Watching your cable management ideas with interest.

Adrian

[Gina]

That's an impressive imaging array, Gina. And some set of cables to sort out !! (I thought I had problems but .....!)

Watching your cable management ideas with interest.

Adrian

Thanks And I haven't finished yet - I'm planning to add guide scope rings on top of the ST80 for a wide-field Atik plus prime lens system Yes cable management is quite a subject

[Ewan]

For what it's worth i bought the DMK""618 + all the necessary to go with it after a lot of questions on here & my own research, i wanted to be able to get the most out of imaging from my setup.

I have only had the chance to use it twice in 2 months because of the weather & i am no expert by any means, using filters & wheel for the first time was an experience but not bad (got my avatar shot from the first run), you just end up doing a 'little more work' with mono i guess then OSC but i am thinking about buying a DBK now as well.

To be honest unless you blow your final picture up to a large size i don't think anyone would notice any difference at all in regards to res or detail (capture data at the same time i mean), some people just don't notice these things, bit like HD Ready Tv & Full HD is a good comparison as most do not know the difference or see it soo each to their own.

What ever you go for you will probably be happy with your results but you will then want more as most of us do

[jezhughes]

I just ordered a colour out of pure rage at the British weather and only getting 1 clear night where i live in the last 2 or 3 months. Since getting my first CCD (mono) i've only managed to get about 4 hours of data over LRGB, which in terms of depth isn't even worth using at this point.

I'm a pretty impatient guy and dont want to wait 6 months to get enough data for just 1 image, so i got an OSC so i can at least do something worthwhile with the time i get at the scope.