Calling ASI 174MM owners

[Stub Mandrel]

OK, while it's a nice thought to blow a grand on a camera, I have better use for such amounts of money 😞

So, are there any views on the ASI174MM out there from people who have used it?

Does it respond well to darks?

Is it feasible/worthwhile to cool it by insulating it and attaching a peltier to the housing (I know this won't be as effective as built in cooling).

Is it a step up compared to a cooled or mono DSLR?

Has anyone got a few example images?

Edited August 1, 2019 by Stub Mandrel

[Merlin66]

Neil,

I have the ASI 174MM, but only use it for solar imaging. Used at zero gain ( 189 gain under FireCapture) it works well with the SM60/ED80 combo as well as the 102/1100 PST mod.

 

[wimvb]

I have the cooled version of the asi174mm. It's a nice little camera, good for galaxy hunting and planetary imaging. It has larger pixels than most other cmos caneras out there (5.86 um). Unfortunately ZWO have decided to discontinue it, but qhy still market their version I believe. The camera has amp glow, but that's easy to calibrate out with darks. The darks need to be captured at the same settings as the lights, including temperature, so if you have means to keep the temperature constant it should work ok.

Images are on my astrobin page and the link is in my signature. 

Edited August 2, 2019 by wimvb

[Dragon_Astro]

Altair Astro also do their own 174M cmos cameras, cheaper than ZWO  for some reason.

My 183M responds well to using darks, gets rid of any amp glow and the huge star burst artefact that can plague subs at high gain.

Using SharpCap I use the Dark Subtraction at the same time as capturing L subs.

[JamesF]

19 minutes ago, Dragon_Astro said:

Altair Astro also do their own 174M cmos cameras, cheaper than ZWO  for some reason.

I think, though I don't know for certain, that Altair pretty much just rebadge Touptek cameras whereas ZWO build their own.  That being the case it might explain why Altair's are cheaper because Touptek also build the cameras to sell themselves and to rebadge for other suppliers (eg. Rising Cam and I think also Opticstar) so their production runs are probably larger.

James

[Stub Mandrel]

Thanks Folks,

That's useful feedback.

The accidental materialisation of another bass may set this project back a couple of months...

[wimvb]

8 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Thanks Folks,

That's useful feedback.

The accidental materialisation of another bass may set this project back a couple of months...

With the sky being the way it is, that bass will probably be used a lot more than the camera. Enjoy it.

[Stub Mandrel]

I missed a clear night yesterday 😞

Spent the evening at a band meeting, then got back to a houseful..

[JamesF]

Returning to this thread three weeks later...

I've done a bit of imaging with the 174MM (uncooled) and my Photoline 72 now, just whilst ironing out the gremlins as I set things up in the observatory.  It looks as though the camera does respond nicely to darks, which is just as well given the hideous amp glow in the bottom right corner.  It would be interesting to see how it might perform if cooled.

James

[JamesF]

Forgot to mention -- I posted the images from these sessions in the DSO section.

James

[JamesF]

Just been experimenting this evening and it seems as though 300s is the longest exposure possible with the 174MM.  It is running at 19C even now though, so cooling may well improve the raw data.

James

[Stub Mandrel]

I'll go and find your images!

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Well this is tough.

Realistically I'm looking at two choices ASI174 or ASI 183 and cooled or not.

I'm impressed at your results with an uncooled camera on such warm evenings.

Makes me wonder how effective a peltier fitted on the back and some insulation would be...

Darn it ... the 1600 with bigger sensor and in-between pixel size is clearly idea, but...

[JamesF]

I think I would go for cooling on any camera intended for longer exposures.  Last night the 174MM was running at 19C.  I'm struggling to convince myself that's not going to generate a fair bit of thermal noise.  Not that I'm unhappy with that -- I actually bought the 174MM for solar Ha and I'm only using it for DSO imaging because I don't have much else (other than the 314L+ which is already on another OTA) for longer exposures.  And whilst there is a bit of Ha activity on the Sun, it's hardly pulling the crowds right now, is it?

I am half-tempted to switch my 450D to the Photoline 72 and then use the 174MM with the C9.25 for lunar imaging.  But do I want the loss of sensitivity?

What has put me off the ASI183 (I'm fairly sure it's the 183) is the massive starburst glow from the right hand side of the sensor.  I know people say you can process it out, but I really don't think it should exist in the first place in an astro camera.

James

[wimvb]

As I wrote a few minutes ago in another thread; the ASI174MM-Cool has been discontinued. But afaIk, the qhy cooled version is still available. The Altair Astro 174M only has fan cooling. 

[Dragon_Astro]

I have an Altair 183, just a fan with no set cooling, admittedly yes the star burst is/was there. Found it very frustrating at first but correct darks get rid of it totally....100%

Heres a recent capture from the past couple of nights, I know it needs more data to smooth it out but shows what can be done with just 15s subs, mono cam, so it’s LRGB.

My guiding wasn’t set up because I was cloud dodging 😄, so subs would’ve been longer.

 

[Stub Mandrel]

42 minutes ago, Dragon_Astro said:

I have an Altair 183, just a fan with no set cooling

Did wonder about one of those.

[Dragon_Astro]

24 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Did wonder about one of those.

Yeah it’s not bad, mines the first version, they do another one with 4gb memory buffer.

I never use it as full size capture, the subs end up at 40mb each.

As I said, the Cocoon above is with 15s subs, only 28 of them....so that’s only 7.5mins collectively 😄

If you collected 6+ hrs of longer subs....you’d be onto a winner.

I hop about from one DSO to another, so not really hit it’s full potential at all. Must get into better habits 😁