The ideal camera for a WO Red/SpaceCat

[AntHart]

Hey

looking at the William Optics RedCat/SpaceCat (250mm/f4.9) and a colour camera to best suit this.

Ideally ASI brand...as may go the ASIair route with it. (Portable setup) 

Budget Up to £1000 ...

Thats a lot for me for a camera so it’s a big decision!

I know Mono and filters would always be better and if I were in a permanent setup like a garden I’d go that way but as my rig needs to be portable with no ideal spot for it at home I want to make the most of clear and dark sky’s when I’m out.

So I think a colour camera would be best with a Ha filter maybe?

still very new to this so any advice always welcome 👍🏼
 

Cheers 

Ant 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by AntHart
Typo

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Bit tricky I'm afraid. If you're going down the dedicated astrocam route it's not ideal to put an Ha filter in front of a bayer matrix and lose 3/4 of your signal. That said, an Ha filter does still work well with colour cameras as it isolates the Ha from the background.

Think I'd advise either DSLR + clip-in ha filter as a budget option or saving saving your money until a full mono setup is an option.

[AntHart]

14 hours ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

Bit tricky I'm afraid. If you're going down the dedicated astrocam route it's not ideal to put an Ha filter in front of a bayer matrix and lose 3/4 of your signal. That said, an Ha filter does still work well with colour cameras as it isolates the Ha from the background.

Think I'd advise either DSLR + clip-in ha filter as a budget option or saving saving your money until a full mono setup is an option.

Thanks for your reply mate...I’m quickly learning there is much much more than meets the eye with this hobby/obsession! 
 

I have a Canon 6d mk1 full frame but was looking more towards a dedicated colour or mono camera purely for the reason of ..in layman’s terms .. of getting in closer by using a smaller chip to give a smaller fov..if that makes sense? I know what I mean just not sure of the correct terminology.

ive included a photo below to demonstrate...only used M31 as it shows what I mean easier.

Yes, I could just go for a longer FL scope but the design and quality of this is stunning for the price plus portability is a big tick for me.

Your comment about using a Ha filter with a bayer matrix makes sense, although I wouldn’t be keeping it fitted all the time I’d  image in colour and just pop in the Ha filter as needed.

Thats the way I was planning to use it...is that not the case then?

I ‘was’ looking at these cameras but not sure now what might or might not be suitable.

ASI 183 MC /pro

ASI 183 MM /pro

Maybe I need to try and get my head around it a little more..I though I was doing well!ha!

Cheers

Ant 
 

 

[Buzzard75]

I use the ASI183MM Pro with a Redcat and can vouch for it. The MC would also be a good choice if you really want one shot color. It offers good pixel scale when paired with the Redcat.

[AntHart]

1 hour ago, AntHart said:

Thanks for your reply mate...I’m quickly learning there is much much more than meets the eye with this hobby/obsession! 
 

I have a Canon 6d mk1 full frame but was looking more towards a dedicated colour or mono camera purely for the reason of ..in layman’s terms .. of getting in closer by using a smaller chip to give a smaller fov..if that makes sense? I know what I mean just not sure of the correct terminology.

ive included a photo below to demonstrate...only used M31 as it shows what I mean easier.

Yes, I could just go for a longer FL scope but the design and quality of this is stunning for the price plus portability is a big tick for me.

Your comment about using a Ha filter with a bayer matrix makes sense, although I wouldn’t be keeping it fitted all the time I’d  image in colour and just pop in the Ha filter as needed.

Thats the way I was planning to use it...is that not the case then?

I ‘was’ looking at these cameras but not sure now what might or might not be suitable.

ASI 183 MC /pro

ASI 183 MM /pro

Maybe I need to try and get my head around it a little more..I though I was doing well!ha!

Cheers

Ant 
 

 

This is the video that I watched that made me think about moving away from a full frame with the redcat/SpaceCat and use a dedicated camera...around 7min is what I was trying to describe having a smaller sensor gives more ‘zoom’ or closer FOV...

 

[AntHart]

1 hour ago, Buzzard75 said:

I use the ASI183MM Pro with a Redcat and can vouch for it. The MC would also be a good choice if you really want one shot color. It offers good pixel scale when paired with the Redcat.

Thanks for your reply mate  The only reason I’m ‘favouring’ a colour camera is that my setup isn’t permanent ...I basically have to go out in my van to dark sky locations and camp overnight, my location at home just isn’t suitable.

my thinking was if I go for a 1 shot colour I’d get more data than I would from mono in a shorter time.

sure mono produces a better overall image at the end of it all if you have the time to get it but if I have to travel somewhere and only have say 1 clear night a month worse case That unfortunately puts mono on hold for me.

id rather get a slightly less quality full image than potentially get only 1/4 of an unusable one if that makes sense! 

im still very much a beginner so also feel colour is still the way I need to go with this massive learning curve ahead of me!ha!

cheers

Ant

[Knight of Clear Skies]

7 hours ago, AntHart said:

Your comment about using a Ha filter with a bayer matrix makes sense, although I wouldn’t be keeping it fitted all the time I’d  image in colour and just pop in the Ha filter as needed.

Thats the way I was planning to use it...is that not the case then?

Yes, that's how I use my clip-in filter with my DSLR.

Lots to think about here, have you considered what mount you need? To be honest, if you already have a 6D I'd advise giving that a go first with any lenses you own, rather than jumping in with a scope and small-sensor, small-pixel camera which would be quite challenging. As you say, AP is a learning curve. There will be limited opportunities for imaging until the autumn as the night are getting shorter (in Summer the sky never gets fully dark). This could be an ideal time to learn the ropes - getting used to a mount, polar alignment, finding targets, stacking and image processing - and then you'd have a better idea of what you want to do. Tracking at short focal lengths is far more forgiving.

Here's an example M31 image taken with a 1960s vintage 135mm Takumar lens and Canon 1100D, somewhat cropped.

This is just a two minute exposure with a quick process, a snapshot in AP terms. (Taken by my nephew who was 7 at the time, he had lots of help but got the camera on target and snapped the picture).

Whereas this is 50 minutes on the Heart & Soul with the Samyang 135mm f2, 1100D and clip-in Ha filter. Uncropped, these targets are much bigger than M31. (My next step is to blend this in with a colour image I took with the Takumar ages ago, but it looks like I'll have to purchase and use Registar to do this.)

Hope that's some help, it's difficult to advise people looking to get into AP as people want to do different things. But I would suggest keeping things as simple as possible to begin with, my session failure rate was quite high when I started out and I still get days when I mess something up.

Edited April 17, 2020 by Knight of Clear Skies

[Knight of Clear Skies]

7 hours ago, AntHart said:

I have a Canon 6d mk1 full frame but was looking more towards a dedicated colour or mono camera purely for the reason of ..in layman’s terms .. of getting in closer by using a smaller chip to give a smaller fov..if that makes sense? I know what I mean just not sure of the correct terminology.

Just to clear this up, there are problems with this approach. Your images are going to be limited more by how much light you can gather, a smaller chip doesn't really 'zoom in' but it discards much of the imaging circle produced by the scope. True, the smaller pixels will show more detail, but only if you can achieve good enough tracking and signal-to-noise ratio. Only very high quality AP images look good at 1:1 scale. The small pixel camera approach could work, but probably only for bright targets such as star clusters and galaxy cores.

[Freddie]

That video clip is really misleading and completely misses the point. As said above, if you ignore the pixel size as he does in the vid, just cropping the image produced by the larger chip will achieve the exact same result as using a smaller chip. If he wants to “zoom” in on specific targets he would actually be better off with the larger chip, capture the two targets in the same FOV of the larger chip and crop out each target and you have two images but taken in one go on the larger chip instead of having to do two completely separate imaging runs. He either doesn’t understand what he is talking about or does a really bad job of explaining what he is doing.

[Buzzard75]

13 hours ago, Freddie said:

That video clip is really misleading and completely misses the point. As said above, if you ignore the pixel size as he does in the vid, just cropping the image produced by the larger chip will achieve the exact same result as using a smaller chip. If he wants to “zoom” in on specific targets he would actually be better off with the larger chip, capture the two targets in the same FOV of the larger chip and crop out each target and you have two images but taken in one go on the larger chip instead of having to do two completely separate imaging runs. He either doesn’t understand what he is talking about or does a really bad job of explaining what he is doing.

This. I've seen a few of his videos and I don't think he fully understands what he is talking about a lot of the time. He seems to be regurgitating something he read online and paraphrasing it or making up his own explanation without fully understanding the concepts. It's a bad way to teach and demonstrate. I believe he is just starting out with astrophotography and documenting his activities. We all have to start somewhere I guess, but I certainly wouldn't be putting out videos without being somewhat of an expert in the field, which I am certainly not. 

[AntHart]

I think that opens up a whole new question then here...What YouTube channels would be worth swatting up on that do provide the correct and detailed info?

I follow Dylan O’Donnell, Trevor/AstroBackyard, Chucks Astrophotography 

Be great to know some more to check out!

 

The question about my mount...it’s an old but good NEQ-6 pro synscan that I’ll be hooking up to a laptop or considering an asi air...I don’t have either ATM so need to sort something there...maybe even a Pi and stellarmate?

 

Thanks again for all the advice 

[AntHart]

17 hours ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

Yes, that's how I use my clip-in filter with my DSLR.

Lots to think about here, have you considered what mount you need? To be honest, if you already have a 6D I'd advise giving that a go first with any lenses you own, rather than jumping in with a scope and small-sensor, small-pixel camera which would be quite challenging. As you say, AP is a learning curve. There will be limited opportunities for imaging until the autumn as the night are getting shorter (in Summer the sky never gets fully dark). This could be an ideal time to learn the ropes - getting used to a mount, polar alignment, finding targets, stacking and image processing - and then you'd have a better idea of what you want to do. Tracking at short focal lengths is far more forgiving.

Here's an example M31 image taken with a 1960s vintage 135mm Takumar lens and Canon 1100D, somewhat cropped.

This is just a two minute exposure with a quick process, a snapshot in AP terms. (Taken by my nephew who was 7 at the time, he had lots of help but got the camera on target and snapped the picture).

Whereas this is 50 minutes on the Heart & Soul with the Samyang 135mm f2, 1100D and clip-in Ha filter. Uncropped, these targets are much bigger than M31. (My next step is to blend this in with a colour image I took with the Takumar ages ago, but it looks like I'll have to purchase and use Registar to do this.)

Hope that's some help, it's difficult to advise people looking to get into AP as people want to do different things. But I would suggest keeping things as simple as possible to begin with, my session failure rate was quite high when I started out and I still get days when I mess something up.

I’ve actually thought about using the 6d and a 135mm Samyang f2, seem some awesome stuff with that lens. Just not really sure about getting the Ha mod/Astro modified if I’m thinking about cooled cameras.

I wouldn’t mind taking a punt on a used crop sensor dslr and modding it myself.

Pretty handy with that type of thing and I’ve got plenty of time on my hands atm! 
 

Open to any and all options really  

[Knight of Clear Skies]

6 hours ago, AntHart said:

I wouldn’t mind taking a punt on a used crop sensor dslr and modding it myself.

Pretty handy with that type of thing and I’ve got plenty of time on my hands atm! 

Yes, that could be a good option. But if you mod it yourself please bear in mind the sensor may need to be re-shimmed to reach infinity focus with camera lenses.

If you do go down this route have you considered the second hand market? Could be good for either buying or selling on if you decide you want a specialised camera later, so your outlay could be fairly small.

[Merlin66]

Adding an internal clip in Astronomik clear filter will allow camera lenses to focus.

You do loose the auto-focus function.....

[John Nodding]

I have the Space Cat and the ASI 533 and have used an 1:25 Optolong L-eNhance dual narrow band filter. I’m fairly inexperienced, and have limited technical knowledge, so I can only say that I’m really happy (for now!) with the results...so far!