ZWO camera for dummies

[Mike_S]

Hi,

I have been thinking of moving on from taking snaps with my smartphone. I am not rushing into a purchase. I know next to nothing about imaging but from the bits of advice I have tried to piece together it seems it would be easiest to start with a colour camera? I would like as easy to use as possible for a beginner. My scope is a 12” F5.3 dob. 1600mm focul length. I know it’s not ideal for imaging but I just would like to improve on my smartphone images of planets and some of the brighter DSO’s such as Orions Nebula.

Looking at the prices as well it seems to be between the ASI 120MC-S, 224MC, 290MC, 178MC or the 385MC. 
What is the difference between them? I have had a look at the field of view images but I’m struggling to tell the difference. It seems I would need a Barlow as well.

The cameras I mentioned are all here

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-summer-sale.html

let me know if there are any essential accessories too please. 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks. 

Edited July 27, 2019 by MSammon

[Demonperformer]

Check the chip size and pixel sizes. A bigger chip will cover more sky. Pixel size gives you your resolution for your focal length - general wisdom tends to be to go for about 2"/px.

[PeterCPC]

Go to the top of the page. Resources - Field of view Calculator - Calculators - CCD suitability.

Peter

[Mike_S]

Okay so it looks like I need a focul reducer of around 0.5. What does the seeing part mean? Is that for sky conditions? I am near a town centre bortle 6.

[Adam J]

On 27/07/2019 at 09:11, Mike_S said:

Okay so it looks like I need a focul reducer of around 0.5. What does the seeing part mean? Is that for sky conditions? I am near a town centre bortle 6.

I dont think that you would like the results from a 0.5x focal reducer on a Dob, you will need a coma corrector for a dob and the best you can find without spending a fortune is a 0.9x reduction. Your current scope is suitable for imaging planets without any reducer but unfortunately neither the scope or the mounting type are suitable to any degree of DSO imaging. You will want a tracking EQ mount and a much much shorter focal length scope to start out with DSO imaging.

[cletrac1922]

Mike

Have done some research into this as well

My local astronomy shop recommends ZWO ASI 290MC

To download to tablet or smart phone, also going to need ZWO ASIAir - WiFi Control

The 290MC also comes in cooled version as well

John

[wimvb]

At this point it starts to make sense to hint to this:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html

Start there. Imaging planets and imaging dso's are two entirely different things. For planets you can use smaller pixels to your advantage. Check out the imaging>planets section in this forum as well as images on astrobin.