Planetary camera

[Arushin]

Hi all,

does anyone know if there is, or what would be, an improvement over a DFK21 AU04 for planetary imaging with a Mak 180 with a budget of around £300 2nd hand?

[emadmoussa]

http://www.modernastronomy.com/camerasPlanetary.html

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

The ASI120MC gets a very good press. It is quite cheap.

[emadmoussa]

I second ASI120MC - check this thread

[Freddie]

I'm not so sure an ASI cam would be a great improvement over a DFK. I'm not seeing lots of new great images other than some with larger scopes. A worth while improvement over DFK would be a mono cam with RGB filters in my view.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I'm not so sure an ASI cam would be a great improvement over a DFK. I'm not seeing lots of new great images other than some with larger scopes. A worth while improvement over DFK would be a mono cam with RGB filters in my view.

The older DFK listed here is one with 38% QE (same as SPC900), not the new 68% QE with the ICX 618 chip. The ASI120 is rated at 75% QE. Moving from an old DFK to the new model DFK/DMK21-618 is getting great results for many, the ASI120 strikes me as similar in many respects, but is much cheaper. Even with my ASI130MM I notice I can use shorter exposure times and can get better results than with my old SPC900 due to the increase in QE to 55%. I agree a mono camera with RGB filter wheel will have an edge, but will not be within budget.

[Freddie]

I just don't see it as being a £300 improvement from what I've seen so far.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I just don't see it as being a £300 improvement from what I've seen so far.

That might well be true. It does depend on what planet you are imaging, I find. A faint distant one like Saturn benefits more than Jupiter, I feel.

[Arushin]

http://www.modernast...sPlanetary.html

Thanks for this..

is there one in particular on this page that would be a good choice?

[emadmoussa]

For me personally, I use the QHY5 guide camera for this purpose. Since it's a mono camera, it picks up pretty good details. I'm not sure if it's an improvement over what you have or not though.

[Arushin]

Thanks to everyone for your replies and input.

I decided to go for the ASI120MC and see how I get on for a while. Placed the order on Monday night and it arrived in the UK this morning' so far so good. I will do a report on my thoughts and findings once I have been able to give it a decent work out. I am intrigued to see how it shapes up with the Mak 180 compared to the DFK21 AU04.

Watch this space....

[Arushin]

Right....

ASI120MC landed with me on Tuesday 2nd, exactly 1 week from placing the order. I have to say how impressed I am with the shipping because that is none too shabby especially considering it was the Easter weekend in the UK. China to UK in 3-4 working days and NO import duty.

The Camera itself came assembled as a high end webcam but the package contained everything needed to convert it to a planetary cam. To unscrew the lens and replace with the supplied IR filter and 1.25 barrel took about 40 seconds. My only problem was that I could not get the supplied driver/software disc to work in either of my 2 laptops or my desktop PC, so I simply opted to download them from the suppliers website. Another problem solved in just a couple of minutes.

As luck would have it, Tuesday night was nice and clear so I thought I would give it a quick trial and see how it held up against my previous Philips 900 webcam and DFK21 AU04.

Baring in mind that I now have to use the new version of Sharpcap which is a bit harder to get my hopeless head around (older versions seemed to crash with the camera) I took a couple of shots of Jupiter just to try and get an idea of which settings I should use.

Upon finding that my 2X barlow had decided to self destruct and was unusable I realized that a direct comparison was not possible at this stage so gave up for the night. Upon stacking the resulting AVI's with just the camera (no barlow) for the sheer hell of it, I found myself very pleasantly surprised.

This was taken with the DFK in my SW 180pro Mak with 2X barlow and is probably the best Jupiter I had ever got

...this is about 800 frames with the ASI120MC in the same scope but without a barlow

I can see a fair bit more clarity with the new camera already and this is after just 20 minutes of messing around (and without the barlow).

I would like to thank everyone who helped me out in this thread and in particular those who pointed me in the direction of this camera. I think the ASI and I are going to have a very long and happy relationship. I am definitely going to have to invest in a good quality 2X barlow.

Thanks again everyone