Camera for use with Skyliner 10” Flextube Dobsonian

[Callan]

Hi. I have a Skyliner 250P Flextube Synscan Goto Dobsonian scope. I would like to use a camera on this scope for near live time viewing. I live in Ayrshire Scotland in suburbia with some light pollution. My main interest just now is DSO’s. The Goto on my system is ok. (When set up properly!). I realise this 1200mm f4.7 set up might not be the best for this, but I was hoping I could achieve better than eyepiece viewing. I have done some research and have come up with a selection of cameras which may or may not fit the bill. As I am a complete beginner in this aspect of astronomy, I’m hoping you guys might give some guidance on the camera choices. I realise I will need to get to grips with the software for any camera which may be chosen. Also some of the sensors may be too small to give a decent FOV with this set up, but even so if they still can be rated against the cameras chosen I would be grateful. Obviously no one person will have experience of all cameras and have their own favourites, but hopefully any feedback will be great. I don’t want to get too technical discussing pixels etc. as I just want a near live time view in colour if practical and keep things as simple as possible. If it has to be mono, so be it. The cameras I am considering are as follows.

ZWO ASI-1600MC (Panasonic MN34230 sensor):  ZWO ASI-290:  ZWO ASI-224MC:  Mallincam Sky Raider DS2.3 Plus:  Mallincam Sky Raider DS16C:  QHY 5III-224:  Rising Tech 224:  Star Vision:  Atik Infinity (I gather software is good and user friendly?): Altair Hypercam 183c:

I realise everyone has their own personal choices and may suggest  other cameras to consider , so any guidance will be much appreciated.

Thanks, Callan.

[shirva]

Hi callan,

Just up the road from you in Cumbernauld,

You could try 

https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

It will give you an idea of what you may get with your scope.

Unfortunately my largest scope is the Skywatcher explorer 200p ds. And I use  on a heq5 mount .

I have been using DSLRs for last year and a bit, but just bought the zwo asi178mc last week and weather not been kind enough to test it yet.

Davy

[Callan]

Hi Davy. Thanks for the feedback. Great to have the calculator. Gives me other options to research. Good luck with your new camera and I hope you get clear nights. Suspect your nights are similar to here at the moment and good viewing is rare!

Callan.

[shirva]

Your not kidding there, weather wise it was a disaster last year,, hopefully better this year,, I keep changing my kit for something to do.

I went from eq3 pro to Skywatcher allview, to heq5 pro , to az gti.

Camera wise from Samsung scb ,Phil dyer camera, qhy5lii c, watec 902h to canon 600d, canon 450d modded to the zwo 178,,, hopefully I can get some use out of my kit, lol

[stash_old]

10 hours ago, shirva said:

Your not kidding there, weather wise it was a disaster last year,, hopefully better this year,, I keep changing my kit for something to do.

I went from eq3 pro to Skywatcher allview, to heq5 pro , to az gti.

Camera wise from Samsung scb ,Phil dyer camera, qhy5lii c, watec 902h to canon 600d, canon 450d modded to the zwo 178,,, hopefully I can get some use out of my kit, lol

Taking pictures of clouds at night time   One can hope !

[London_David]

I'm originally from Stirling... and now dealing with London light pollution! You will definitely achieve a huge jump compared to eyepiece viewing.

Personally, I'd highly recommend the ZWO cameras -- I've had great experiences with them using SharpCap which is great software and works very well with the ZWO cameras. The ASI290 mono is very sensitive with low read noise which is great and I get surprisingly good results even in Zone 2 London on a 6" looking at DSOs (mostly I'm interested in galaxies but it's good on nebula and globular clusters too). The high sensitivity of the ASI290 allows me to stack short exposures (0.5-10 seconds) and get good results.

I'd say the simplified, quick and dirty answer is that if you want colour the ASI224 is currently the most sensitive, low noise colour camera (barring the Sony A7sII) but there are some new ZWO camera's just about to be released that will either surpass or give you the same sensitivity with a larger sensor. Of course, your decision will not be purely on performance of the camera. It depends on what you want to look at, checking out astronomy tools with your cameras is a very good idea. Don't buy on spec's alone...

Essentially your colour/mono choice comes down to mono with more detail and sensitivity or colour with less detail and colour noise, but... well in colour! I went mono because I wanted the performance, and to use a colour wheel for narrowband, but I am now looking to buy a colour camera too. One is not enough! 

Since I'm interested in galaxies,  with the ASI290 you can get exposures under 2 seconds and SharpCap will stack them to give you a good view. I'd recommend checking out AstroJedi's posts over on Cloudy Nights he gets good views of galaxies from a 8" SCT under Southern Californian light pollution. He uses a variety of cameras and you can see what kind of exposure times he's looking at. Seeing image posts here and on Cloudy Nights was how I decided what to buy.

As an overview -- in terms of general reputation the ZWO and QHY cameras have similar quality. Rising Tech use the same components but are cheaper, and not quite so polished (lacking features, drivers etc -- depending how much you like to fiddle with computers your milage may vary). Atik is good quality and has user friendly software (there are some good videos on YouTube you can check out to see the software in operation) but is on the expensive end. Mallincam to me seem unimpressive and expensive for what you get but they have very dedicated followers (and haters) so any discussion seems to start big arguments! Altair Hypercam I have little knowledge of. However, I have a feeling they using the same sensor etc. as ZWO, QHY and Rising Tech. I can't remember, but I have a gut feeling that I stopped looking at their camera because it was older and ZWO/QHY had newer features.

Personally, after doing this research a while ago ZWO was the winner for me. They come across as astronomers make cameras and have a very friendly accessible forum where you can talk to the founder of the company Sam. Plus SharpCap is great software written by a guy called Robin, who again will answer email personally (I recommend paying the £10 for SharpCap to support his second job!). I've only ever heard good things about QHY and Atik but they seemed a bit less immediately friendly. That was just my impression. 

Budget/risk would determine things for me...  if I were you I would start with a ASI290 mono if you're interested in detail or, if you want colour, the ASI224/whatever the new equivalent is from ZWO. At under £300 uncooled that's not a crazy amount to spend to get started and see if you like spending time at the computer rather than the eyepeice. There's no getting around the fact that if you go this route you will be spending quite a bit of time fiddling with the computer getting things working and playing with histogram sliders to explore the images on screen. I'm very happy doing that, but again, you have to like working with computers as well as working with the mechanical stuff. 

The bigger sensors I'm a bit less knowledgable about, however there are some new ones on the way too, but even the ASI1600 is over £1000 if I remember right, plus you'll want to start getting cooling, which makes things even more expensive again. Though with your scope a bigger sensor would indeed let you see a wider field.

You could also get a focal reducer which would make your scope very fast and give you a wider view. For me galaxies are often small objects so a small sensor can work for me, but it is a good idea to look at your camera/scope combination and what you want to look at. A small sensor camera is not going to be any good if you're looking to get the whole of Andromeda in one shot.

The new colour ASIxxx camera that is the replacement for the ASI224 is currently in beta testing and should be out in the next month or two. That would definitely be a better fit for your scope because it has a bigger sensor than the ASI224. There is a thread about this with the beta testers on Cloudy Nights too.

10" f4.7 is actually good though. So you should get something quite fun working. Under f5 and you are in good shape for assisted viewing and 10" will give you good resolution. The main issue will be tracking with the dob.  I have a EQ mount, but as I understand it AltAZ mounts are fine for this kind of use up to about 15 second exposures. Certainly I find that I can skip polar aligning accurately if I am keeping my exposures under that and at f5 or under and a sensitive, low noise camera you should be good.

 

 

[Callan]

Hi.David. Sorry for the late reply. Some great info you’ve given. Lot to think about. Atik are beta testing their new CMOS Horizon camera at the moment. I gather it has a 4/3 inch sensor and might be available in November. The Infinity software will be included. Price is forecast to be about £1400 for the mono and slightly less for the colour. A bit expensive but might be worth a look. Also I’m not too fussy about getting M31 in full view, but like you, I’m interested in other galaxies and DSO’s. I may also consider another set up with maybe a Skywatcher EQ5 PRO Synscan plus suitable scope.(Slightly easier to handle and transport than the EQ6. Realise lower weight limit for chosen scope.) Again a lot to consider and research here. Thanks again David.

Callan. X