Which cooled CMOS camera for short refractor (72/432)

[freiform]

Hi,

I have a Lacerta 72/432 ED-APO (w/ flattener) and am (barely) using it with a Canon 1000Da, but I must say that the camera irritates me more than it probably should. Sensitivity in live view makes me dread focusing, and imaging in moderate temperatures is just too noisy.

I am considering getting a fast and sensitive mono camera. I would be satisfied w/o colour for a time and could gradually add filters and a wheel. Bug given my mediocre small town skies, and relatively small Vixen GP mount, I guess this could be a reasonable approach. I have been looking into the 1600 Pro, 183 Pro, or 174, but I really am not sure which way to go.

Considering pixel size, all should be a match for my scope, more or less. 

* The 1600 seems the to be go-to camera, tried and tested. I read about issues with micro lensing, altough I do not know if it would be an issue for me personally. And of the three mentioned, it has the largest FOV. Also, with ~1500 € more on the expensive side, relatively speaking.

* The 183 Pro has a bit smaller FOV, which might be ok, but those small pixels will be a difficult to handle. If I can actually utilize them at all given my small mount and small town skies. The price is nice. But will I be able to handle it? I also read that is has slighly more noise than the 1600, but again, will it practically matter?

* The 174 seems to be discontinued, and given the small sensor and FOV, more aimed at planetary? Although I suppose it would be nice going after smaller objects with it.

What about the other brands? Atik has its Horizon, but it doesn't seem priced well compared to the 1600. Then there is the QHY163, but I don't see any reason to prefer it to the 1600?

For the 183, there is the Altair Hypercam with the same chip, any reason to prefer that to the ASI 183, besides the sturdy case?

Are there other alternatives I am missing? It is important that the camera is fully suported by Linux / INDI. If I could use the cam to do some EAA/live stacking, that would be a nice addition, but I suppose all of the above are capable of that.

Regarding additional equipment, I would be perfectly fine in doing some broadband mono in the beginning, but I suppose I need an L-filter to cut UV and IR anyway? I probably could justify getting a motorized wheel and a set of decent LRGB filters I suppse. Any recommendations for that? Again, the wheel should be fully supported by Linux/INDI. Expensive NB filters can wait, there's enough to learn and do without anywhere near enough time to do it .

Regarding filters, would I get away with 1,25" filters for the 1600? How about distance from filter to sensor? With the 183's smaller sensor, I suppose this is less on an issue?

 

In the end, if I pay a bit less without loosing too much performance, that would be fine with me.

Any ideas, recommendations or comments?

 

Thank you

Sven

[Adam J]

1 hour ago, freiform said:

Hi,

I have a Lacerta 72/432 ED-APO (w/ flattener) and am (barely) using it with a Canon 1000Da, but I must say that the camera irritates me more than it probably should. Sensitivity in live view makes me dread focusing, and imaging in moderate temperatures is just too noisy.

I am considering getting a fast and sensitive mono camera. I would be satisfied w/o colour for a time and could gradually add filters and a wheel. Bug given my mediocre small town skies, and relatively small Vixen GP mount, I guess this could be a reasonable approach. I have been looking into the 1600 Pro, 183 Pro, or 174, but I really am not sure which way to go.

Considering pixel size, all should be a match for my scope, more or less. 

* The 1600 seems the to be go-to camera, tried and tested. I read about issues with micro lensing, altough I do not know if it would be an issue for me personally. And of the three mentioned, it has the largest FOV. Also, with ~1500 € more on the expensive side, relatively speaking.

* The 183 Pro has a bit smaller FOV, which might be ok, but those small pixels will be a difficult to handle. If I can actually utilize them at all given my small mount and small town skies. The price is nice. But will I be able to handle it? I also read that is has slighly more noise than the 1600, but again, will it practically matter?

* The 174 seems to be discontinued, and given the small sensor and FOV, more aimed at planetary? Although I suppose it would be nice going after smaller objects with it.

What about the other brands? Atik has its Horizon, but it doesn't seem priced well compared to the 1600. Then there is the QHY163, but I don't see any reason to prefer it to the 1600?

For the 183, there is the Altair Hypercam with the same chip, any reason to prefer that to the ASI 183, besides the sturdy case?

Are there other alternatives I am missing? It is important that the camera is fully suported by Linux / INDI. If I could use the cam to do some EAA/live stacking, that would be a nice addition, but I suppose all of the above are capable of that.

Regarding additional equipment, I would be perfectly fine in doing some broadband mono in the beginning, but I suppose I need an L-filter to cut UV and IR anyway? I probably could justify getting a motorized wheel and a set of decent LRGB filters I suppse. Any recommendations for that? Again, the wheel should be fully supported by Linux/INDI. Expensive NB filters can wait, there's enough to learn and do without anywhere near enough time to do it .

Regarding filters, would I get away with 1,25" filters for the 1600? How about distance from filter to sensor? With the 183's smaller sensor, I suppose this is less on an issue?

 

In the end, if I pay a bit less without loosing too much performance, that would be fine with me.

Any ideas, recommendations or comments?

 

Thank you

Sven

Don't discount a used Atik 460EX if the micro lensing is an issue for you, i think its a better sensor than the 183 unless you really want new.

[freiform]

10 hours ago, Adam J said:

Don't discount a used Atik 460EX if the micro lensing is an issue for you, i think its a better sensor than the 183 unless you really want new.

Assuming I came across one of these, how would it compare regarding exposure times? What I find attractive about current CMOS astro cams is the short exposures. How does the 460EX compare?

Anyway, it seems micro lensing of the 1600 is an issue with longer focal lengths or very bright stars. So not really a showstopper. And the greater sensitivity and ease of handling due to the larger pixels also seems more suited to my needs.

[david_taurus83]

The microlensing is hit and miss. My WO GT71 and Flat6AII seem to control it well. See below. It's there but not in your face. I have another scope and flattener and it's more pronounced on that but I've only seen it on the brightest of stars like Capella, Vega etc. More so on the red and Ha filter.

 

[freiform]

Any other suggestions?

It has been pointed out to me that with LRGB, I will start seeing chromatic aberration with those cameras compare to my DSLR.  Wouldn't take the L filter take care of that? I have also been told that 1,25 filters will introduce vignetting, although I found lots of reports that state the opposite.

[Adam J]

9 hours ago, freiform said:

Any other suggestions?

It has been pointed out to me that with LRGB, I will start seeing chromatic aberration with those cameras compare to my DSLR.  Wouldn't take the L filter take care of that? I have also been told that 1,25 filters will introduce vignetting, although I found lots of reports that state the opposite.

If you refocus between filters then you wont see any CA on a mono camera, well unless its a really poor scope. It might cause a tiny bit of bloat on stars but it wont cause colour fringing so long as you re-focus. 

[freiform]

Hi Adam,

26 minutes ago, Adam J said:

If you refocus between filters then you wont see any CA on a mono camera, well unless its a really poor scope. It might cause a tiny bit of bloat on stars but it wont cause colour fringing so long as you re-focus. 

Thank you for the reply, that is reassuring.

Do you by chance have any thoughts on the camera choice? I've been throwing this and that around and am leaning slightly towards the 183 Pro. Looking at various Objects (by no measn a extensive list), I find that more often even the 1600 is too small and I would need a shorter FL anyway. With the 183 I could go for smaller objects, galaxies or planetary nebulas. The only thing I worry about is that the 183 is significantly more difficult to handle due to the small pixels and that my GP (or myself!) would not quite be up for it even with the realtive short exposure times.

[freiform]

I went with the ASI183MM Pro. I got a deal on wheel and filters comparable to the complete ASI1600 kit. Very excited. 😀

[Adam J]

34 minutes ago, freiform said:

I went with the ASI183MM Pro. I got a deal on wheel and filters comparable to the complete ASI1600 kit. Very excited. 😀

Sorry I did not see your question before, I think that you will be happy with the ASI183mm pro, the various mono cameras available at the moment all have different strengths but you can take a nice image with any one of them and while its nice to keep between 1 and 2 arc seconds per pixel its not a hard rule that you must follow.