Propeller with vintage OSC

[whipdry]

Brought my original QHY8 out of retirement along with a G11 & TV102@f6.9 for a whirl with the propeller. 

Far from faultless but not bad for a vintage OSC CCD! 

 

Peter

[Craney]

It is a fine shot.  Did you have to take a lot of subs  ?   

When you say 'vintage'......  just how old ??  I'm wondering if I am expecting too much from my OSC.  

I have a second hand QHY8Pro, but have not really got it to perform very effectively  (yet).  Probably more 'user-error' than anything else, but with the results I have had, it seems very sensitive to any ambient conditions.   My subs never look that convincing and I usually have to stretch the histogram to confirm that I have captured the object.

To gain any depth to an imageI think I am really am going  to have to commit hours to it rather than 10x3mins that I do now.

Any secrets ??

 

Sean.

 

[tomato]

Nice one. Interesting concept of an Astro camera becoming a vintage item. I guess sensitivity, resolution and cooling technology has improved over the years, but in the UK at least I can’t ever envisage one becoming worn out.

[whipdry]

5 hours ago, Craney said:

It is a fine shot.  Did you have to take a lot of subs  ?   

When you say 'vintage'......  just how old ??  I'm wondering if I am expecting too much from my OSC.  

I have a second hand QHY8Pro, but have not really got it to perform very effectively  (yet).  Probably more 'user-error' than anything else, but with the results I have had, it seems very sensitive to any ambient conditions.   My subs never look that convincing and I usually have to stretch the histogram to confirm that I have captured the object.

To gain any depth to an imageI think I am really am going  to have to commit hours to it rather than 10x3mins that I do now.

Any secrets ??

 

Sean.

 

Hi Sean,

Thanks, it's 16x 15min.

I bought the camera secondhand 9 years ago, believe it was 2year old at that time.

The biggest problem I found with the early model (besides light pollution) was moisture inside the CCD chamber, on the newer cylinder shaped version the moisture issue seems to be sorted making it an easier camera to use.

OSC secrets, plenty of long subs under a dark sky.

 

Peter

[pete_l]

2 hours ago, tomato said:

I guess sensitivity, resolution and cooling technology has improved over the years,

Not as much as you'd think!

The QHY8 came out at the end of 2010. It's a 6MPix camera that has 7.8u pixels with a QE of 50-60% and 8-10e of readout noise
Compared with a 16200 camera: 4500x3600 6u pixels (so roughly the same FoV as the pixels are just over half the size) a QE of 60% and a readout noise of 9e

The significant changes seem to me to be USB3 (only on some versions of the 16200 cameras), weight: 1.3kg vs. 400g, pixel count/size, price: something over twice the price of the QHY8 and an extra 10°C of cooling capability.

[whipdry]

2 hours ago, tomato said:

Nice one. Interesting concept of an Astro camera becoming a vintage item. I guess sensitivity, resolution and cooling technology has improved over the years, but in the UK at least I can’t ever envisage one becoming worn out.

Thanks tomato. Last time the QHY8 went back for repair they said it was worn out from use and offered an upgrade to the new model but wanted $580+taxes, went for the $60 repair.

 

Peter

[ollypenrice]

Very nice image. This is an Ha dominated target so getting it so clear from OSC is good going.

CCD cameras haven't changed much. My own favourite one uses technology available more than 10 years ago.

Olly

[JamesF]

Somewhere in a cupboard somewhere I think I have an ex-Olly Atik 16ic(?).  That must be getting quite "vintage" by now :)

James

[Davey-T]

1 hour ago, JamesF said:

Somewhere in a cupboard somewhere I think I have an ex-Olly Atik 16ic(?).  That must be getting quite "vintage" by now

James

I have an ex Olly Atik4000OSC, does this provenance make them worth more ? perhaps he could print us a certificate 😂

Dave

[ollypenrice]

On 22/05/2019 at 12:39, JamesF said:

Somewhere in a cupboard somewhere I think I have an ex-Olly Atik 16ic(?).  That must be getting quite "vintage" by now

James

I'll buy it back! For some reason I'd convinced myself that I ought to be using Lodestars to guide. The Lodestar is fine (apart from the vile cable connections on the Mk1) but, given the choice, I'd go for the 16ic. All is forgiven! We still use one of Tom's ancient 16ics to guide one of the rigs. I think it's the twin TEC but it's raining and I'm too much of a wuss to go and check...

On 22/05/2019 at 13:56, Davey-T said:

I have an ex Olly Atik4000OSC, does this provenance make them worth more ? perhaps he could print us a certificate 😂

Dave

Sure, worth a fortune! Certificates? Not a problem, speak to my legal team.  It was an enjoyable camera which I used mainly in conjunction with Ha from the mono sister camera. I think Orion was its finest hour, 6 panel, 88 hour Samyang 80 mosaic, made redundant by Mr O'Donoghue's 400 hour master work.

Olly

 

[Davey-T]

5 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

I think Orion was its finest hour,

I think the Pleiades image was pretty good.

Dave

[JamesF]

22 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I'll buy it back! For some reason I'd convinced myself that I ought to be using Lodestars to guide. The Lodestar is fine (apart from the vile cable connections on the Mk1) but, given the choice, I'd go for the 16ic. All is forgiven! We still use one of Tom's ancient 16ics to guide one of the rigs. I think it's the twin TEC but it's raining and I'm too much of a wuss to go and check...

Oooh, it'll cost ya.  Apparently it has quite a provenance

Genuinely surprised you're guiding with a colour camera though.  Do you need to make any allowances for colour, or does it "just work"?

James

[ollypenrice]

11 hours ago, JamesF said:

Oooh, it'll cost ya.  Apparently it has quite a provenance

Genuinely surprised you're guiding with a colour camera though.  Do you need to make any allowances for colour, or does it "just work"?

James

I bought a colour 16ic for guiding simply because I already had a mono and wanted to see what using a colour camera was like. I did a bit of imaging with it on the side to find out.  I never had any issue finding stars so I thought it would be OK for guiding and it was. I know the theory: the mono gets more signal from the full spectrum but, in reality, I found no perceptible difference between mono and colour 16ics for guiding. They were both infallible. We still have one of Tom's guiding the dual TEC.

Olly