ASI6200MM Pro or other large mp CMOS Cameras - Feedback

[Midnight_lightning]

I have always used CCD cameras to date but am now looking at the new CMOS high mp cameras and possibly full frame.

Just wondered if anyone is using one and how they are getting on with it?

One of the things I am wondering about is processing the data - the ASI6200MM is 62mp and I'm wondering if you need a Cray and an SSD NAS to do the processing?

Thanks

Jon

 

[Wyvernp]

I was thinking the same when I saw the specs. I imagine it's geared towards people who can do very long exposures. Although AMD have released a 128 core CPU now, along with some solid state storage one just might be ok.

[vlaiv]

From what I've seen - it is very very good camera. I don't have first hand experience with camera itself, but I had access to data it produced and I liked very much what I saw.

@Ken82 has first hand experience and should be able to provide more info on data size and processing requirements as well as general impressions of the camera.

[Ken82]

Hi Jon,

I've been using an asi 6200mm for a couple of months now and im very pleased. Please excuse the poor processing attempt as im completely new to LRGB imaging and clearly still trying to learn the ropes. 

I primarily bought the camera and scope for widefield narrowband imaging which i plan to bin 2x2 in software. Since its galaxy season i decided to give it ago and see what resolution i could gain with 3.75u pixels. Im very pleased what this camera achieves at 1.5"arc sec per pixel on galaxies ive imaged so far and shows its very versatile in that respect. 

One thing you will need to be mindful off is your scope will need to be very well corrected to illuminate such a large sensor, I can see definite star elongation on my takahashi fsq 106 near the corners (possibly also due to tilt). The 2x7" filter wheel bolts perfectly onto the camera and works very well. Cooling is a breeze compared to my asi071 and takes very little time to achieve -10 and maintain the temperature (usually around 30% power with an outside temp of 0-5c). I dont think the M54 opening was a clever idea from zwo as the OAG  will cause vignetting being so far from sensor. I dont use the OAG but even adding a M54 male to male adapter (ouo 32 or ouo 31) causes vignetting as these are too narrow internally and ouo32 is far too long. Off course im being fussy and this could be overcome by flats assuming your scope is corrected for 42+mm. Unfortunately the tilt adapter which is removed and re connected to the OAG or filter wheel is of little use as you would have to remove the whole optical train to make an adjustment at M54 (Maybe someone has a better idea on this?)

Vlaiv has been a great help giving me the technical analysis of darks, flats and lights which have all been consistent in adu and show read noise to be comparable to the zwo graphs. I Cant speak highly enough of him!  

Images i have included are a simple stack and stretch of 102x1.5min luminance and 25x1.5min RGB. I had to crop oddly due to leaving the laptop shining onto the scope causing a reflection to the right hand side. 

If you need any darks etc to look at please dont hesitate to pm me !

I hope that is helpful any questions please let me know. 

Ken 

Edit- In terms of processing i was also concerned with 61mp! Im using an i7 9750 with 1tb NVME M2 SSD AND 32GB ram which appears to work very well at the moment. I see no reason to upgrade the processor at this time. Images do take up a considerable amount of space but i plan to put it all on an external HDD. 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Ken82

[Midnight_lightning]

2 hours ago, Ken82 said:

Hi Jon,

I've been using an asi 6200mm for a couple of months now and im very pleased. Please excuse the poor processing attempt as im completely new to LRGB imaging and clearly still trying to learn the ropes. 

I primarily bought the camera and scope for widefield narrowband imaging which i plan to bin 2x2 in software. Since its galaxy season i decided to give it ago and see what resolution i could gain with 3.75u pixels. Im very pleased what this camera achieves at 1.5"arc sec per pixel on galaxies ive imaged so far and shows its very versatile in that respect. 

One thing you will need to be mindful off is your scope will need to be very well corrected to illuminate such a large sensor, I can see definite star elongation on my takahashi fsq 106 near the corners (possibly also due to tilt). The 2x7" filter wheel bolts perfectly onto the camera and works very well. Cooling is a breeze compared to my asi071 and takes very little time to achieve -10 and maintain the temperature (usually around 30% power with an outside temp of 0-5c). I dont think the M54 opening was a clever idea from zwo as the OAG  will cause vignetting being so far from sensor. I dont use the OAG but even adding a M54 male to male adapter (ouo 32 or ouo 31) causes vignetting as these are too narrow internally and ouo32 is far too long. Off course im being fussy and this could be overcome by flats assuming your scope is corrected for 42+mm. Unfortunately the tilt adapter which is removed and re connected to the OAG or filter wheel is of little use as you would have to remove the whole optical train to make an adjustment at M54 (Maybe someone has a better idea on this?)

Vlaiv has been a great help giving me the technical analysis of darks, flats and lights which have all been consistent in adu and show read noise to be comparable to the zwo graphs. I Cant speak highly enough of him!  

Images i have included are a simple stack and stretch of 102x1.5min luminance and 25x1.5min RGB. I had to crop oddly due to leaving the laptop shining onto the scope causing a reflection to the right hand side. 

If you need any darks etc to look at please dont hesitate to pm me !

I hope that is helpful any questions please let me know. 

Ken 

Edit- In terms of processing i was also concerned with 61mp! Im using an i7 9750 with 1tb NVME M2 SSD AND 32GB ram which appears to work very well at the moment. I see no reason to upgrade the processor at this time. Images do take up a considerable amount of space but i plan to put it all on an external HDD. 

Hi Ken, 

Thanks for the detailed response, that has clarified a few things and also provided other things for me to think about :). 

I built my PC maybe 6 years ago and will need to check the spec but something like good i5,  m2 250GB, 12GB RAM so maybe looking a bit weak now. 

I would be interested to see a full frame version if you have one?

Thanks again for the info

Jon

 

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Midnight_lightning

[discardedastro]

2 minutes ago, Midnight_lightning said:

I built my PC maybe 6 years ago and will need to check the spec but something like good i5,  m2 250GB, 12GB RAM so maybe looking a bit weak now. 

For processing of lots of large images, particularly with well-multithreaded software like PixInsight, the AMD offerings are worth a look. Lots of RAM and NVMe storage are the real key though. I'm dealing with 24MP frames on some of my work (with a full-frame Nikon Z6) and that takes a fair bit of time to crunch through 50-100 exposures on a 3950X (16 core) with 32G RAM and (fast) NVMe storage - probably 5-6 minutes per integration of 100 frames. Once past integration though CPU and storage are king - at 24MP this combo can do most things in 10-20 seconds on a 24MP image, with prompt previews.

I think 62MP will scale more or less linearly in terms of compute time, if not a little worse, so an i5 may struggle depending on your patience, but with 12G RAM you should do OK! AMD also has a huge benefit over Intel in I/O performance which is important - PCIe 4 drives are starting to arrive, and AMD chips have many more PCIe lanes available than the more expensive Intel equivalents, as well as PCIe 4 support across much of the lineup.

Little disappointed to hear of the vignetting with the ASI6200's default setup - full frame is a big sensor for sure but you'd think they'd consider that in the engineering of it all...

[Midnight_lightning]

Thanks discardedastro, that is really useful info - I'll need to do a new PC build before long so maybe will go back to AMD - always used to like their processors.

I agree the vignetting is worrying and will investigate,  seems very odd they haven't gt this right on such an expensive camera.

 

[Ken82]

46 minutes ago, Midnight_lightning said:

Thanks discardedastro, that is really useful info - I'll need to do a new PC build before long so maybe will go back to AMD - always used to like their processors.

I agree the vignetting is worrying and will investigate,  seems very odd they haven't gt this right on such an expensive camera.

 

I wouldn’t be overly concerned by the vignetting I have described it’s the additional adapters which cause this due to internal diameter and length from sensor. It is also easily corrected by flats.  My custom adapter works great as you can see from a quick image -
 

image 1 is with custom adapter 

image 2 with ouo 31 and 32 

[Midnight_lightning]

Thanks Ken, really useful.

[smr]

I didn't realise until today that there's a colour version of this camera. That data in the OP looks very nice and clean.

[Ken82]

Perhaps this is a better rendition of my first HALRGB with the asi 6200mm? First time ive used a mono camera so im sure others would do much better. Relatively speaking im very pleased and i think others who get this camera will also be happy.

This is from bortle 6 skies which surprises me as i expected to be just imaging narrowband at home. Im also very pleased with the resolution at (3.75u pixels and 530mm focal length its very versatile) 106mmscope.