ASI1600mm cool

[Jokehoba]

Managed to get a few hours O3 to add to the Ha posted earlier. Still not had time to fully process - too impatient to see the result! Combined as LRGB-style, HaO3O3 (Image17) and as blended channels (Image7). 

[Gina]

Taking the temperature right down makes a big difference.  With the mild nights I've only managed -23°C (on rare occasions of clear sky) but the noise is noticeably less than at -15°C - I haven't tried higher temperature cooling.

[Zakalwe]

I've got one of these incoming too.

I'm looking forward to mounting it in the observatory, using it a couple of times in the next 2 years and then selling it.

 

No, I'm not fed up with the constant crummy Lancashire weather, No way, no sirree...

[Jokehoba]

20 hours ago, Gina said:

Taking the temperature right down makes a big difference.  With the mild nights I've only managed -23°C (on rare occasions of clear sky) but the noise is noticeably less than at -15°C - I haven't tried higher temperature cooling.

Thanks Gina. I'll try going lower - looks like clear skies here tonight (yippie!). My only worry is frosting on the sensor window. Is this ever a problem?

[Gina]

Hasn't happened to me (yet)

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Jokehoba said:

Thanks Gina. I'll try going lower - looks like clear skies here tonight (yippie!). My only worry is frosting on the sensor window. Is this ever a problem?

ZWO said frost shouldn't be a problem initially as they've "sealed" the chamber but it may become an issue as the desiccant supplied becomes less hygroscopic (perhaps saturated it a better word :-))

Frost was a constant concern with my QHY8 but as I kept it in an air tight box when not in use, and surrounded it with desiccant, I never had a problem (well, once but that's because I'd opened the chamber for maintenance)

So I intend to keep my 1600 in an air tight box too - might help but probably not much

I'm looking forward to the clear skies tonight - thought I'd try 20 x 30 sec on each filter as its the short exposure capabilities of this format that inspired me to buy it

David

 

[Jokehoba]

3 minutes ago, David_L said:

Frost was a constant concern with my QHY8 but as I kept it in an air tight box when not in use, and surrounded it with desiccant, I never had a problem (well, once but that's because I'd opened the chamber for maintenance)

Thanks, that sounds like a good idea. I've no intention of opening the chamber just yet!

8 minutes ago, David_L said:

I'm looking forward to the clear skies tonight - thought I'd try 20 x 30 sec on each filter as its the short exposure capabilities of this format that inspired me to buy it

If I drop the temperature, perhaps I'll try shorter subs tonight too.

[Gina]

Dropping the temperature means you can go for longer subs without getting too much noise.  I haven't had enough hours of clear night sky yet to try much but so far I've used 120s with Ha filter at -23°C for North American and Pelican Nebulae.  I'll need to do a lot more testing to get optimum settings but the weather is still a problem!  Yes, I too am hoping to use more and shorter exposures with this camera.

[Zakalwe]

I got a first chance to mount mine last night. No chance of doing any imaging as the cloud cover was about 95%!

I found the connection very flaky, with both SGP and Nebulosity constantly losing connection (actually, it would hang and report "downloading" constantly). I was connecting via a USB3 powered hub. I swapped it over to a USB2 powered hub and this improved things. Still not perfect though. Anyone else experiencing this?

[Freff]

Zakalwe I had similar issues with mine. I resolved it by adjusting the USBTraffic in the settings.

Even though the camera was connected via USB3 and a relatively fast computer, it was still problematic. HTH

[Gina]

I've been using SharpCap and APT and had no problem with connectivity.  I took dozens of Ha subs last night using APT of the North American and Pelican Nebulae then moved over to the Cygnus Loop.  Stayed up to after 1am.  Haven't looked at what I got as yet let alone stacked etc. as I've been out most of the day today.

[Gina]

I've now taken one sub of the Cygnus Loop and stretched the histogram in Photoshop.  This is just a single Ha sub of 60s exposure firstly full frame and secondly rotated and cropped.  Both then resized down to the size required for upload here and saved in PNG format.

[Gina]

Here's a further crop showing full scale (not resized - just cropped) pixel for pixel from the original same Ha sub.  Same histogram stretch and no other processing.  I have high hopes for when I can get a full set of Ha, OIII and SII subs.  I think this ASI1600MM-Cool looks like doing better than the Atik 460EX. 

This magnified view is showing oblong stars at this exposure (60s) without guiding but in view of the amount of data I think I could easily halve the exposure and still get adequate subs for stacking.  As an area just under 1200x1200px from a 4656×3520px image I think this is pretty good   And this is only my first proper attempt - should get better.

[wimvb]

Great result. There is a weak gradient in the upper left. Amp glow? It should be easy to process out.

I want one too 

[Guest]

I got to use my ASI1600MM for the first time on Friday night - great clear night for hours and hours :-)

I'm still processing the results of my experiments - North America Nebula and Garnet Star/Elephant trunk - I'll post them with details later today hopefully

I've heard others discuss these connection issues - luckily I had none so here's details of my connections in case it helps

I use Nebulosity 4 / PHD2 / Stellarium / EQMOD (PC Direct Mode on the NEQ6)

All equipment connected to a USB2 hub on the pier - ZWO is pretty explicit about not using a hub but I thought I'd try :-)

USB cable from the hub to the camera and another from the 1600 on board hub to a ZWO120MC for guiding / guide camera plugged into the mount

Some had problems with shorter exposure subs (Flats/Bias) but mine ran fine (pretty basic laptop as well)

There's some discussion on the user forum about the connection issues - most solved them pretty quickly

I was really surprised how hassle free set up and running the rig was with this camera - and having used a QHY8 (1st gen) it was nice to be able to see what the TEC temp was - although I ran it at 100% the entire time - and no frosting either :-)

More later

David

 

 

 

[MattJenko]

Here is my latest. Narrowband 5 mins subs for all the Ha, Oiii, Sii channels. The weak signal Oiii caused problems as the amp glow at 5 mins is proving a little tricky to be honest. End result is hard to argue with though.

 

[Gina]

Great image - lots of data in that

Here are my stacked and post-processed subs from Friday night into Saturday morning.  All subs were 30s exposure with 135mm f2.5 Asahi Super Takumar lens at full aperture and Astrodon 5nm Ha filter.  In both cases DSS chose half the subs for stacking and I went on to process in Photoshop, rotating for Cygnus Loop and cropping to DSO for both.  With more subs I did a bit more processing for the Cygnus Loop viz. Enhance DSO & Reduce Stars plus Space Noise Reduction.  The images were then resized for upload and saved in PNG format.  Stack of 4 subs for NAN & Pelican and 26 subs for Cygnus Loop.

[Guest]

Great work Gina and MattJenko! Really encouraging results

I'm still trying to process mine - I haven't imaged in lrgb before so its taking a lot of trial and error - one things for sure I'm learning a lot about Pixinsight lol

David

 

[wimvb]

Gina,

Only 4 x 30 s on the NAN & Pelican? That's very impressive for only 2 minutes of data.

[Gina]

Yes indeed - I feel very excited about this new camera - it has truly revitalised my enthusiasm for DSO imaging

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Gina said:

Yes indeed - I feel very excited about this new camera - it has truly revitalised my enthusiasm for DSO imaging

Me too Gina! It's the first time I've looked at a sub with a massive double barreled aircraft light stream on it and thought "ha ha ha - it's only a 60 second sub - it can be deleted" :-)

It reminded me of my normal reaction when it happened on a 20 minute sub......so embarrassing to cry in front of people.....lolol

David

 

[SkyBound]

On 10 August 2016 at 16:04, FLO said:

Thank-you  

We only noticed our ZWO ASI1600MM Cool stock had an integrated USB hub when dispatching Gina's order.  In theory all our ZWO ASI1600MM Cool will have the same from here onwards but we will check every one prior to dispatch, to be sure. 

HTH, 

Steve 

Hi,

i contacted You guys at FLO a few weeks ago asking about the new ones with the intergrated USB hub, and was told that you knew nothing about them !!.

but you say you now have them, any idea when the colour models will be in stock ?

[SilverAstro]

39 minutes ago, SkyBound said:

any idea when the colour models will be in stock ?

Amazing images by all, and most interesting watching Gina's progress in re-commisioning her imaging setup.

As a consequence I was just now looking on the FLO site for this magical camara and it seems that they are already in stock , (this one ??) > https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi1600mc-cool-usb-3-colour-camera.html

 

[SkyBound]

20 minutes ago, SilverAstro said:

Amazing images by all, and most interesting watching Gina's progress in re-commisioning her imaging setup.

As a consequence I was just now looking on the FLO site for this magical camara and it seems that they are already in stock , (this one ??) > https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi1600mc-cool-usb-3-colour-camera.html

 

Superb,

has anybody on here got any reviews of the colour version..?

also could I ask, what maybe a silly question...

if money was no object, would having a mono and a colour version of the same, for example the ASI1600 camera, be just as good as a mono camera and filter wheel and LRGB filters, I realise narrowband can only be done with the mono camera, but if the mono was used for the "L"Chanel and / or some Ha, and the colour cam used for the colour then combine all images, what would the result be like ?? Better, worse, or about the same...as mono and filters...

as I think it would be quicker for me with lots of LP and shorter exposures would be much better, and by getting all the colour in one go would mean I could probably get a half decent image in one session...

any thoughts, pros and cons.....

[Gina]

I think it depends on the DSO.  Where there are star forming areas producing Ha I like to add Ha to RGB.  TBH, I've never found LRGB and better than RGB but for a faint object you might want to bin 2x2 for RGB and then unbinned L could be useful.  This is based on CCD imaging - things might be different for the new ZWO CMOS cameras - these seem very different from CCD in their characteristics which I'm looking forward to exploring