Zwo Vs altair

[Anthonyexmouth]

Am I missing something here? The Altair comes with 4gb memory and a pelican case for the same price as the zwo with less memory and a padded pouch. I thought zwo were the budget option. 

Does anyone know if there are any benefits with either of these over the other one? 

 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

If this is the Altair one

https://www.altairastro.com/Altair-Hypercam-183M-PRO-Mono-Camera-Fan-cooled-4GB.html

It is fan cooled, not Peltier (TEC) cooled. That is a big difference in terms of dark current

[Anthonyexmouth]

No, these 2

https://www.altairastro.com/Altair-Hypercam-183M-Mono-PRO-TEC-COOLED-Camera.html

https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/product/asi183mm-pro-mono

[fwm891]

Quote

They don't look the same - the apertures are different shapes so the photo's may not match the described products - email Altair to confirm image/spec agree.

 

[Anthonyexmouth]

Specs look the same from what I can see. Same sensor. The Altair has 4gb memory and the zwo has 256mb. I like buying from FLO because they're only a short bike ride away but if the Altair is the same camera with a few beneficial extras for the same price I'll go for that. But if there's a reason the zwo is a better option for a reason that I can't see I'll happily pop up to Flo for one. Big investment so wanna get the best bang for my buck

[Thalestris24]

Hiya

Depends what you want to use it for, I think. I'd say the only advantage of having 4gb is if you plan to take full frame video? For still imaging I can't see the need. There may be differences with the electronics, amp glo suppression. Fwiw I have a qhy163m en route  It's a little cheaper (£899) than the zwo at the moment but doesn't come with the set of adapters that zwo include and only has 128mb of ddr 2 memory.

Louise

ps what did you want the 183m for, specifically?

Edited March 27, 2019 by Thalestris24

[Anthonyexmouth]

I read that the memory reduced amp glow. Maybe Altair have just upped their pricing game to compete with zwo. Seems a no brainer if they are basically the same but the Altair comes with the pelican case and extras memory. 

[Thalestris24]

5 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

I read that the memory reduced amp glow. Maybe Altair have just upped their pricing game to compete with zwo. Seems a no brainer if they are basically the same but the Altair comes with the pelican case and extras memory. 

Well, a single full frame is about 40MB so the only reason to have GB is to buffer video. I think the amp glo is exposure dependent so wouldn't show up with video speed exposure lengths, afaik. At the end of the day, it's your preference. Maybe search for the Hypercam and see if there are any reviews and pics that might help. I got a really nice aluminium case with my ts 80mm apo but it's tucked away up in the loft now... I don't know if the Hypercam comes with a similar set of adapters supplied by zwo? On the other hand, you may not need any of them! 

Louise

[newbie alert]

The altair 183 have just introduced the Tec cooled version, where as the zwo has been Tec cooled for sometime..

A friend has both the 1600 and the 183 as says the 1600 is a far better camera, amp glow is far more prominent on the 183

[Anthonyexmouth]

The 1600 was my first choice but struggling with the expense, maybe I should hang on until I can afford that

[pete_l]

2 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Am I missing something here? The Altair comes with 4gb memory

Four gigaBYTES of memory, or 4 gigaBITS (i.e. 512MByte)?

The Altair advertisement is not explicit and I doubt there would be any way for a user to tell. Personally I would like to see a photo of the circuit board to validate one or the other.

Edited March 27, 2019 by pete_l

[Anthonyexmouth]

26 minutes ago, pete_l said:

Four gigaBYTES of memory, or 4 gigaBITS (i.e. 512MByte)?

The Altair advertisement is not explicit and I doubt there would be any way for a user to tell. Personally I would like to see a photo of the circuit board to validate one or the other.

It's definitely 4 gigs bytes. It's got capital GB.  

[Anthonyexmouth]

Seems Altair have just released their 1600 mono cam now and it's £100 cheaper than the zwo. 1600 might be in the running now at just £200 more

[Thalestris24]

Hi

What did you want it for, specifically? I've bought mine foe eaa/live stacking at short focal lengths - 200 to 384mm. The 183 has 2.4um pixels but lots of them! I'm intending to software bin/downsample which should increase the snr. The 1600 has 3.8um pixels but not such a high qe.

Louise

[Anthonyexmouth]

9 minutes ago, Thalestris24 said:

Hi

What did you want it for, specifically? I've bought mine foe eaa/live stacking at short focal lengths - 200 to 384mm. The 183 has 2.4um pixels but lots of them! I'm intending to software bin/downsample which should increase the snr. The 1600 has 3.8um pixels but not such a high qe.

Louise

Mainly for my ed80 at @500mm with the reducer but hoping to get something longer for smaller objects too. The 183 is ideal for the 80 but seems the 1600 is a little bit more flexible. With the price being so close now, closer than a few weeks ago it makes it a tighter race.

[knobby]

Don't forget the ZWO will attract tax and import duty, so not as cheap as it looks ?

[Thalestris24]

Just now, knobby said:

Don't forget the ZWO will attract tax and import duty, so not as cheap as it looks ?

FLO sell them so no worries there!

[newbie alert]

5 hours ago, Thalestris24 said:

Hi

What did you want it for, specifically? I've bought mine foe eaa/live stacking at short focal lengths - 200 to 384mm. The 183 has 2.4um pixels but lots of them! I'm intending to software bin/downsample which should increase the snr. The 1600 has 3.8um pixels but not such a high qe.

Louise

Just a question,  not questioning but does binning increase snr? 

And does this mean the QE is higher at the green end

[pete_l]

CMOS cameras can't do hardware binning in the way that CCDs can, That reduces the readout noise from a CCD.
But modern CMOS cameras have a much lower read out noise level, so there is an improvement from doing software binning with them.

 

And: yes.

[Thalestris24]

1 minute ago, newbie alert said:

Just a question,  not questioning but does binning increase snr? 

And does this mean the QE is higher at the green end

Yes and yes. The value at H-alpha is less certain. Christian Buil puts it closer to 50% http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/asi183mm/

[Anthonyexmouth]

1 hour ago, knobby said:

Don't forget the ZWO will attract tax and import duty, so not as cheap as it looks ?

As said, FLO sell them but it seems Altair have gone on a bit of a price war against zwo. Their 1600 mono is £100 cheaper and as with the 183 comes with more memory. Maybe zwo will have a sale coming up like last year. But not sure I can wait. 

As for import duty, that's a roll of the dice. I've bought a couple of dozen things from Ali express and only 2 got stung for duty and both were big box items. 

[knobby]

Just to clarify, I was referring to the price in the link in OP which is the ZWO price ?

[Anthonyexmouth]

Ah yeah, I posted that more for the specs. 

 

[wimvb]

As @pete_l, I'm a bit baffled by the HUUUGE memory in the Altair. A 4GB memory buffer for a 20 Mpix camera just doesn't make sense. You could save a whole nights imaging data in that camera, and still have enough memory left for your vacation pics. Also, somewhere in the text they refer to the camera as the 1600M.

In fact, the Hypercam 1600M Mono excels in any application where higher senstivity, and better SNR performance than a DSLR is required.

Otoh, it isn't April 1 yet.

 

[Anthonyexmouth]

It may just be that 4GB modules are the cheapest option to buy now. Factories will be pumping out that kinda size for millions of mobile phones so sourcing them would be easier and probably cheaper rather than actually needing all that memory