ZWO camera purchase

[smudgeball]

Hi all

Nice and simple (I hope) 

I'm sure these things have been thrashed to death. 

I'm going to be purchasing a camera to compliment my mono setup. Atik 460ex with narrowband filters on a WO Gt102 

Basic one shot colour is what I'm looking at with minimal outlay  ££ connected to my 80mm APO. 

ASI 178 or ASI 224 are the contenders.

Only looking to get quick colour DSO imaging on smaller targets, but add to my collection. 

My feeling is to lean towards the 224 ?

thoughts?? 

Not looking for expensive cooled colour. 

 

Thanks for your time. 

 

Neil 

[Davehux]

Hi Neil

The 224 has a good reputation as a planetary camera. The 178 is more for deep sky.

I bought a 224, but returned it and bought a 178 as, for me, the FOV was too small for plate solving via the ASIair I use.

Very happy with the 178. This image of M42 was taken with it last week, on my 80ED

Hope this helps

[smudgeball]

thanks for your reply,

Food for thught against the 224  purchase

 

Cheers

 

Neil

[vlaiv]

Not really following your reasoning - small non cooled CMOS camera for DSO imaging on small scope.

Will you utilize that camera for anything else - like planetary imaging or EEVA?

Why did you narrow the list down to 178 and 224? Any particular reason?

You have 600D that has been modified, and if you add scope instead of camera - you will get pretty much the same thing but quite a bit "faster" setup. For example:

Virtually the same FOV (just a tad wider) with RC6" + 600D vs ED80 + ASI178. Difference being of course 150mm aperture diameter vs 80mm aperture (almost x4 light gathering increase).

In any case, if you are set on either 178 or 224 - my vote goes to 178 simply because it has larger surface (224 would be my choice for planetary role due to low read noise and 385 would be my choice for EEVA / Planetary / DSO - due to size, sensitivity and read noise - however, maybe wait for 533 camera that is to hit the market right about now to see what sort of price will non cooled version have).

[smudgeball]

Thanks again

Main reason was wanting to remove the 600D and use with my star-adventurer portable setup (should have mentioned)

I know that to do OSC seriously you have to spend a bit, just wanted to get a real life feel of how far you can move away from planetary and what DSO results you could expect.

I'll keep an eye out for the 533, thanks for the pointer.

Neil