£900 to spend on a dedicated cooled camera - What to get??!!

[Photosbykev]

ASI533MC-Pro ordered today to live on the back of a William Optics Zenithstar 61 refractor. Fingers crossed it performs as well as the spec says it will

[Adam J]

20 hours ago, Photosbykev said:

ASI533MC-Pro ordered today to live on the back of a William Optics Zenithstar 61 refractor. Fingers crossed it performs as well as the spec says it will

Its not an easy choice in this price space for OSC right now but I do like the look of these new sensors and am sure it will work very well with the ZS61, congratulations! let us all know how it performs. 

Adam

[AndyThilo]

Deleted

Edited December 4, 2019 by AndyThilo
Not my lights :(

[wimvb]

6 hours ago, AndyThilo said:

got the wrong DSO but hey ho

What were you aiming at? (Well, M51 obviously, but you know what I mean.)

[AndyThilo]

12 minutes ago, wimvb said:

What were you aiming at? (Well, M51 obviously, but you know what I mean.)

Well I was supposed to be photographing M33 haha. Thought it looked a bit small in APT's stretch

[wimvb]

2 minutes ago, AndyThilo said:

Well I was supposed to be photographing M33 haha. Thought it looked a bit small in APT's stretch

Your scope pointing in the opposite direction should have been a hint 

All joking aside, a very nice image with your new camera. I hope you get clear skies to do more imaging between M51 and M33.

[AndyThilo]

Well now I'm even more confused. I just checked the APT log.

2019/12/02 18:16:02 (UT 2019/12/02 18:16:02)    Op    PointCraft: Image solved in 6s using 420 stars
2019/12/02 18:16:02 (UT 2019/12/02 18:16:02)    Op    PointCraft: Detected FOV size (arc-minutes) - 161.03 x 109.66
2019/12/02 18:16:02 (UT 2019/12/02 18:16:02)    DBG    PointCraft: Found Ra 1.5639353935, Dec 30.6594658445
2019/12/02 18:16:02 (UT 2019/12/02 18:16:02)    Op    PointCraft: Successful centering! Target is in 3 pixels.
2019/12/02 18:16:03 (UT 2019/12/02 18:16:03)    Op    Settling after GoTo or Rotation change.

Those RA/DEC figures are for M33. In fact M51 wasn't even visible, it's barely above the horizon. So how do I have a photo of M51..... I'm so confused right now.

[wimvb]

Have a look at one single sub from yesterday. It should have a fits header with capture details, and you can plate solve it to make sure that the coordinates match.

[Photosbykev]

On 03/12/2019 at 11:51, Adam J said:

Its not an easy choice in this price space for OSC right now but I do like the look of these new sensors and am sure it will work very well with the ZS61, congratulations! let us all know how it performs. 

Adam

Delivery delayed two weeks lol At least it will be ready for the next new moon lol

[AndyThilo]

13 hours ago, wimvb said:

Have a look at one single sub from yesterday. It should have a fits header with capture details, and you can plate solve it to make sure that the coordinates match.

Mystery solved, I had captured M33. Only problem is, like an idiot I didn't check the lights directory when stacking in PI and used some test subs from M51. So it wasn't my photo :(, deleted it now. I processed my M33 and need more time on it, there's not a lot of detail. Think I need to take longer subs with lower gain, maybe unity (120) @ 240secs. Hope to get out tonight to get some.

[wimvb]

with CMOS you need to take a LOT of subs. You can choose to either use longer subs at low gain, or shorter subs at high gain. But with the shorter subs, you will need even more to compensate for the loss of dynamic range at high gain.

[AndyThilo]

3 hours ago, wimvb said:

with CMOS you need to take a LOT of subs. You can choose to either use longer subs at low gain, or shorter subs at high gain. But with the shorter subs, you will need even more to compensate for the loss of dynamic range at high gain.

My rig is running at the moment. Tested different combinations of exposure times/gain. Didn’t see much difference tbh with autostretch in APT. Hopefully have another 60 subs this evening to add to the 30 I already have. See how that helps. Seems M33 is pretty dim though? Especially compared to Andromeda.
 

 

[wimvb]

53 minutes ago, AndyThilo said:

Seems M33 is pretty dim though

yes, it is.

56 minutes ago, AndyThilo said:

My rig is running at the moment. Tested different combinations of exposure times/gain. Didn’t see much difference tbh with autostretch in APT.

check this; you won't see much on a single sub, but you'll notice the difference once you start stacking.

https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/tutorials/cooled-asi-camera-setting-in-ascom-driver.html

[AndyThilo]

This one 100% is mine :D, just a quick and dirty edit in PI with LR tweaks

M33 Final V1 Web by Andy Thilo, on Flickr

[2STAR]

On 26/11/2019 at 18:24, AndyThilo said:

Plus Andromeda won't fit in the frame with my Esprit 80 and a 533 and I really want to do that again.

Andromeda should just about be in the fov with the f5 80mm espirit.

Edited February 22, 2020 by 2STAR

[UKAstroBill]

533 is looking very attractive to me not just on price and amp glow but because it is square. Square sensors make a lot more sense for astro. Limited circular fields of illumination are best utilised by square sensors and there is no up in space. I just wish it was bigger. 20mm x 20mm would suit my scopes best and I’d like the lower noise of larger pixels.