Better suited planetary camera for 127 Mak?

[jimbo84]

Hello everyone, I have only recently got myself a telescope and have been enjoying it very much: a Celestron NexStar 127 SLT.

Now, I did a lot of reading here beforehand and I knew before getting it that it would be great for visual use (for what it is) but not ideally suited for imaging, which I was fine with.

I am a photographer anyway and I know that sometimes you need to put the camera down and just enjoy what you are looking at..... but well, you know how it is - when you see something awesome pretty soon you want to take a picture of it. 

So, out comes the Sony α700, for which I already had a T-mount adapter and the results were not too bad. For all of these I took between 40 and 60 images and stacked/processed them using Registax, except for the moons of Jupiter which were a separate exposure, then I chopped in the stacked Jupiter image:

First attempt at Jupiter, with Ganymede, Europa, Io and Callisto

Second attempt, using 2x teleconverter. Nice to see the GRS. 

Saturn

However, I found using the camera for this task to be incredibly tedious, which is not surprising as this is not what it was built for.

It does not shoot video and there is no mirror lock up feature, so to shoot many images I had to use the 2 sec self-timer (with mirror pre-fire)  then wait for the vibrations of the mirror returning to die away before shooting the next frame. It also heavy and the viewfinder is very dark making focusing tricky. 

I understand that some sort small sensor video camera is the way forward - I know there are a lot of threads on this and some Philips webcams were popular, but they can't be found new and seem to command up to £50 used, so I figured I might as well get something a bit more dedicated. I'm not expecting prize-winning results, more of a memento of what I saw, but less faff than the SLR.

I have some options but not made much headway researching them, info seems to be a bit thin on the ground - nothing conclusive, so I was hoping someone here might have an insight or point out anything I've missed.

I would like to keep the budget to approx £100. Some possible candidates are:

ZWO ASI034MC, available new for about £100

Opticstar PX-35C, seen one on Astrobuysell but it's been there a while. Does everyone know something I don't?

Celestron Solar System Imager, about £75 - £100 like this http://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-skyris/celestron-neximage-solar-system-imager.html

Of course I would love to get it in time for the Saturn opposition but I know I've left it a bit late 

Thanks in advance for any help!

[jambouk]

Lovely images. It still amazes me to think how much detail we can capture of these distant planets; it really is awesome. Will let others make camera suggestions.

James

[meryck]

Great images!

I've been imaging Jupiter using the ZWO ASI034MC and a SkyWatcher 200P and I have to say, I'm a very satisfied customer!

I'm not sure if you'll be able to beat it within that budget, though others might know better.

[JamesF]

As far as I recall the Opticstar camera doesn't have a particularly great reputation though I can't recall why.  I have a feeling it's something to do with a perfectly good sensor being let down by the rest of the hardware and firmware.

From a technical point of view I'd be tempted to go with the ASI034MC I think.  The 3um pixels of the Celestron camera are quite small, potentially restricting sensitivity, and the high resolution will limit frame rates unless the camera supports ROI which isn't mentioned anywhere.  The desirable focal ratio with the ASI camera is probably f/30 to f/35-ish and that is quite achievable with the 127 Mak and, say, the Revelation 2.5x barlow with an extension or a decent 3x barlow.  With the Celestron camera you would only need somewhere around f/15 to f/20 perhaps, so a 2x barlow would be quite sufficient.

James

[jimbo84]

Great images!

I've been imaging Jupiter using the ZWO ASI034MC and a SkyWatcher 200P and I have to say, I'm a very satisfied customer!

I'm not sure if you'll be able to beat it within that budget, though others might know better.

Thanks for that, I had a look at some of your images; they look great and I think the ZWO will be just the ticket! Has it been fairly easy to set up and use?

[jimbo84]

As far as I recall the Opticstar camera doesn't have a particularly great reputation though I can't recall why.  I have a feeling it's something to do with a perfectly good sensor being let down by the rest of the hardware and firmware.

From a technical point of view I'd be tempted to go with the ASI034MC I think.  The 3um pixels of the Celestron camera are quite small, potentially restricting sensitivity, and the high resolution will limit frame rates unless the camera supports ROI which isn't mentioned anywhere.  The desirable focal ratio with the ASI camera is probably f/30 to f/35-ish and that is quite achievable with the 127 Mak and, say, the Revelation 2.5x barlow with an extension or a decent 3x barlow.  With the Celestron camera you would only need somewhere around f/15 to f/20 perhaps, so a 2x barlow would be quite sufficient.

James

Ok, I did wonder. I've seen QHY and ZWO cameras pop up and they seem to be grabbed almost as fast as any ferrous metal left out for the scrapman. That PX-35C just doesn't seem to be shifting...

That does make sense - I have seen some discussion about getting the right pixel sizes and sensitivity, I just have trouble following the formulae! So looks like the ZWO will be the one to go for. I was watching one of those Revelation barlows on eBay and forgot to bid... oh well there are plenty about.

Thanks for the advice - I now have a plan of action! I will let you know how I get on.

[meryck]

Thanks for that, I had a look at some of your images; they look great and I think the ZWO will be just the ticket! Has it been fairly easy to set up and use?

Very easy indeed. Out the box, in the usb port, fire up SharpCap and you're away. I was using it with different combinations of 2x and 3x Barlows as you might have seen from my other posts. It's a great camera. You'll love it I'm sure. Best of luck, and post lots of photos!