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ZWO ASI294MC Pro, further review


fwm891

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I've been using the camera now for a few weeks initially under the brighter summer skies and now under darkening autumnal skies. Time to put a few thoughts together.

Firstly:

My skies are classified as Bortle 4 though I have made no attempt to clarify that - just taken the value from FLO's Clear Outside

I tend at present to image using an Altair Wave Series 115 EDT-APO refractor with a 1x Planostar Field flattener and a Baader UV/IR cut filter 1.25" on an iOptron CEM60 Standard mount. I use a TS 80mm guidescope piggybacked on the 115 with an ASI120mm camera as the guide camera. I have a home built RoR observatory and the mount is fitted to an iOptron Tri-pier. I tend also to run the camera at -20°C and capture via SG Pro (3.0.1.####) with Gain set to 122 and offset at 30.

Processing is usually via PixInsight (Ripley 1.8.##) with the occasional tweak in Photoshop CS3 Extended. APP may be added at some stage.

Thoughts:

This has been a diversion for me away from a mono CCD based imaging rig (SX 825 mono +  RGB & Ha filters) and DSLR camera bodies (Nikon 800E OSC and D5100 mono converted) in to the CMOS OSC sphere. It appears (to me) much faster (density build up) than I expected.  Initially I kept subs shorter with more of them to build an image. Under the brighter summer skies that worked well. However as the skies have darkened with autumn approaching I found colour saturation in individual subs much increased by lengthening my sub exposures. Earlier I used 2 and 3 minute subs under the brighter skies. Now I'm settling into using 5 and 10 minute subs, using the same gain and offset settings.

I find the camera handles colour well, it seems quite well balanced with the usual green excess removal during processing using PI's SCNR (I set the slider to 20% and make multiple adjustments rather than leaving it at 100% and one hit...). Initially frightened by the look of the dark frames with their spiked fans spreading across the frame. This is the one area that I've found awkward in that the dark frames have to be carefully matched to the light frames and when processed they should not be optimised as this seems to cause the spikes. I've found processing in PI more difficult in respect of amp glow removal. Astro Pixel Processor (APP) seems to deal with the amp glow much better but I've never been able to get what I feel is good colour from APP. I've only used it for a single trial period but at present don't feel inclined to spend money on it. Flat, flat/darks and bias frames are easy to procure and apply.

Noise is low, whether single subs or after stacking. I do dither frames so that will suppress background noise but I've found little need to hit images with PI's TGVDenoise or other noise reduction routines.

I'm more than happy with the camera. Perhaps I'm lazy and found the routine of RGB filtering a chore against the relative ease an OSC offers. There are differences though: Colour with the  294MC Pro OSC is softer, pastel like almost, against a mono/RGB set-up, but it responds well to level and saturation adjustments during processing.

Looking forward now to the longer darker nights of winter and the arrival of a RASA 8 to put the 294MC Pro on to...

A few recent images from the camera scope combination.

Francis 30/09/2019.

IC1396_Part-of.jpg

NGC7635+7538.jpg

NGC6960_int_cropped.jpg

NGC7293_PI+PS_Final-3.jpg

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@fwm891 Francis, can you please stop posting about how good the ASI294MC is. I keep looking at your results and get the urge to buy one, I've recently purchased 2 new scopes and using them with my DSLR is going very well but your pictures are soooooo much better than mine. Also my sweetheart may blow a gasket if I spent another grand on a camera.

Lovely pictures by the way and soon to be adding a RASA8 to your  collection, I can't wait to see your results from that combo. But then I'll want a RASA too 😭

Edited by Dinglem
Grammer
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@Dinglem Thanks. I've not been happy with the IC1396 image so I've tried a new combination (for me) using APP to process the image subs to integration then process in PI for colour and levels...

 

Part_IC1369_APP_PI.jpg

Edited by fwm891
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Nice report on something of a very similar set-up to that of mine. I tend to stick to same all the time, that being 4 minute subs but at zero gain, my skies are without doubt darker than the ones you take fine shots in. I am now in the process of changing mounts which I have not actually done yet, this mainly due to forgetting to order the cable for computer, that came yesterday.  Like you I was not happy with my IC 1396, I feel this needs the other camera and my shorter Borg 77EDll which will more than cover the whole target.

Alan

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