ZWO ASI294C Pro or ZWO ASI183C Pro

[Selborne]

Hi Guys,

I am looking for a little bit of advice, I have finally reached that point in most amateur astronomers lives, where we think it is time to move from DSLRs to dedicated astro cameras.  Having done a fair bit of research and read far to many forum posts, I think I have brought my choice down to one of two cameras:-

either  the ZWO ASI 284 Pro Colour or the ZWO ASI 183 Pro Colour Cameras,

I know that the real serious of your guys will tell me to go mono, as the results are considerably better, but I am not ready for that yet (that is likely to be the next step).

The type of astrophotography I do is using my Skywatcher 100ED Pro Espirt Telescope, with the 50ED Guidescope and auto guiding software PHD2 of course, and I am happy to work with exposures of over 5 mins, hence the need to move to a cooled camera, to capture deep sky objects.  I have had a great deal of success with my Sony A7Rii full frame 42MP camera, so should I take the next step and if so which way should I go ?

Here is an image below taken with my sony, no flats, bias, or darks, just RAW files processed in Photoshop.

I very much welcome comment and advice,

Many thanks

Jamie

 

 

[vlaiv]

I would say 294mc

[Selborne]

7 hours ago, vlaiv said:

I would say 294mc

Hi Vlaiv, any reason for your suggestion ? Why do you think the 294 is the preferred option ?

Interested to know your thoughts,

Thanks

Jamie

[Adam J]

Neither, I would go mono with the asi1600mm pro . Either way with a 550mm focal length scope the 183 based cameras are not best suited to nebula imaging due to the resultant pixel scale and small fov. I would only recommend them with scopes of around 430mm or less focal length, the 294 is more sensitive anyway. 

Adam

[vlaiv]

4 hours ago, Selborne said:

Hi Vlaiv, any reason for your suggestion ? Why do you think the 294 is the preferred option ?

Interested to know your thoughts,

Thanks

Jamie

Like Adam said, I would also choose ASI1600 in mono version (like I already did ), but since you specified that you are interested in OSC only, and between said two models, 294 is simply going to make you happier.

183 just has too small pixels, which has it's uses with short focal length scopes, but for 550mm it is going to give you resolution of 0.9"/pixel. That resolution is too fine for most of the seeing conditions (you need very good mount and excellent skies to take advantage of such resolution). Sensor is much smaller than 294 so you will end up giving too much of FOV in that case.

294 has 4.63um pixels, so almost twice the size of 183, giving 1.74"/pixel, and sure, you can bin 183 in software (or use super pixel mode) to get almost the same resolution - 1.8"/pixel, but than you can think of having option between:

294, with 2e read noise, and 16Ke well depth, 23.4mm diagonal, 4144x2822

vs

183, with 4.1e read noise, also 16K well depth, 15.86mm diagonal, 2748x1836

(take above read noises with a grain of salt, such calculations work for mono and if read noise is gaussian, but for OSC and in presence of telegraph type of noise that is present in current CMOS sensors, it will probably be a bit different).

Probably best option would be asi1600mcc (color cooled), giving you 1.43"/pixel, but I see that those are discontinued (I sort of like higher resolutions so things in range 1 - 1.2"/pixel are my sweet spot, but then again I have short focal length frac for those wide field shots).

If you plan to expand your imaging gear, going longer focal length and larger scopes in the future - 294 is again having a plus there.

 

[Selborne]

Thank you for a detailed reply, very much appriciated, I will take a look at the 294 as you have suggested,

Cheers

Jamie