ZWO-ASI294 MC Cooled anyone using one?

[fwm891]

Does anyone on the forum use a ZWO ASI 294 MC Cooled camera? Can you tell me something about it's performance please.

I've trawled through Astro Backyard videos and a few others trying to get 'useful' information about the camera and it's operation.

Some of the imagery I've seen as a straight colour camera look great, some imagers using it with narrowband filters? Is this hype or a reality. I have reasonable bortle 4 skies so I'm wondering can I use this camera to it's potential.

I will be using it with an Altair 115EDT-APO, Celestron Edge HD8 and a WO ZS73 APO which means sampling will be fine with the 115, need to bin with the EdgeHD and a bit oversampled with the ZS73

Thanks

[steve k]

I have this camera which I purchased around 6 months ago... I am new to Astrophotography so still learning techniques but have to say very impressed with this camera. It produces amazing images even in my relative inexperience hands. I use this on a Skywatcher Equinox ED 80 pro and OVL Field Flattener fitted with ZWO IR/UV cut filter. Have heard great reports about narrowband photography also especially with STC Duo Filter.

[cletrac1922]

Have been looking at same one

Few of my club members have different models

One of the guys, recently got the 1600 MC Cooled

The cooled have a slight advantage over non-cooled, imaging time from what I understand, be others here whom will probably correct me 

You will also need the ZWO ASIAIR WiFi device to conect to mobile device, and App such as SkySafari

Link to my local astronomy shop, down under on the ASIAIR

https://www.bintel.com.au/product/asiair/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIotrFwpT04wIV2YRwCh1_CwI8EAAYASAAEgLhivD_BwE&v=6cc98ba2045f

John

 

[vlaiv]

I think @Anthonyexmouth has one, but it's probably recent acquisition, so not sure how much time was there to get the hang of it.

 

You will be slightly oversampling with C8HD natively, but that really depends on your mount and skies. Sampling with OSC models is a bit different than with mono models - where pixel width is measure of sampling interval. With OSC camera, since there is bayer matrix, you can think of pixels being spaced 2 widths rather than one, and having 4 grids overlaid on top of each other - each slightly offset. There is red grid, blue grid and two green grids.

If you think of it that way - at native FL of C8HD, being 2032mm, you will be sampling each color at 0.94"/sample - which is just a bit oversampling if you have very good mount. If you put x0.7 reducer on that scope (which would be a good idea), then you will be working with 1.34"/sample, and that is excellent sampling rate for such aperture (again, suitable mount that can be guided with total RMS less than around 0.5" is implied).

In order to work in this mode - you should use superpixel debayer mode - it is closes thing implemented in software. Better still is splitting bayer matrix into sub fields - one red, one blue and two green. In any case you should not consider this camera to be 4144 x 2822 in this case, but rather 2072 x 1411 pixel resolution.

If I were in market for OSC - 294 cooled would be my choice.

 

 

[fwm891]

The more I read on the 294 MC the more talk is of ampglow - anyone any examples of this please. Seen examples on CN but I don't know if they've been cooked or not 😲

Edited August 9, 2019 by fwm891

[Anthonyexmouth]

I think there might have been an issue with early models, and that did concern me but most everything recent i've read says its all good. 

[Adam J]

14 hours ago, fwm891 said:

I've trawled through Astro Backyard videos and a few others trying to get 'useful' information about the camera and it's operation.

I would not expect any actual technical level information from Astro Backyard its more show and tell level advertising. 

My personal opinion is that all things considered the ASI071mc Pro is a better camera, no amp glow, no weird dark frame calibration issues leaving background artefacts.  

Certainly some of the more modern OSC cameras coming out like the QHY268c will blow it out of the water if you can afford it. 

Narrow band with OSC cameras can be achieved and some of the new duel narrow band filters are a step forward but most people with them are not processing the data correctly currently leaving the images red dominated, part of the issue also being the lower transmission of the Green / Blue micro filters to OIII. But if your going to spend that much money and want to do narrow band you are still much better off with a mono camera. 

I would say get a mono camera, in the long run you will be more happy with it. 

Adam 

 

 

 

[fwm891]

45 minutes ago, Adam J said:

I would not expect any actual technical level information from Astro Backyard its more show and tell level advertising. 

My personal opinion is that all things considered the ASI071mc Pro is a better camera, no amp glow, no weird dark frame calibration issues leaving background artefacts.  

Certainly some of the more modern OSC cameras coming out like the QHY268c will blow it out of the water if you can afford it. 

Narrow band with OSC cameras can be achieved and some of the new duel narrow band filters are a step forward but most people with them are not processing the data correctly currently leaving the images red dominated, part of the issue also being the lower transmission of the Green / Blue micro filters to OIII. But if your going to spend that much money and want to do narrow band you are still much better off with a mono camera. 

I would say get a mono camera, in the long run you will be more happy with it. 

Adam 

 

 

 

Thanks Adam - understand what you're saying. I have an SX825 mono, filterwheel + LRGB Ha filters so I'm used to building up mono images in PI and other software.  I'm looking at the 294MC Pro for these shorter warm nights and to cut down on some of the hassle.

[feilimb]

Hi, the amp glow is pretty bad alright. If interested I can send you some sample lights, darks and flats etc. from my ASI294.