Should I get ZWO 120mm mini or 120mm

[Abhinav]

Which one should I get I am little bit confused please help me out

[cletrac1922]

The ASI120mm mini is ideal as a guider scope using Stellerium

For imaging go for the ZWO ASI290MC, and you could also go for the ASI290MM mini as a guider scope as well

You will probably get a lot of other suggestions as sell down the track

John

 

 

 

[blinky]

The mini is mainly intended for guiding and the non mini for imaging non mini has USB3 I think so better for planetary and lunar imaging but the mini can also do it but at a lower frame rate really depends what you want to do with it...

[rnobleeddy]

I believe the non mini works better in Linux. Probably not something you care about though!

[TerryMcK]

What are you intending to do with the camera - guiding, planetary or both?

The mini is ideal for guiding due to its very slim profile. The other one can also do guiding but sometimes you may find it clouts surrounding items due to being physically larger and twice the mass but faster USB3. Same sensor size in both.

[wimvb]

If you go for the non-mini version, make sure you buy the ASI220MM-S ASI120MM-S, which has usb3, and not the (older) ASI120MM. The latter has/had usb compatibility issues. The mini version is ok, though.

Edited July 10, 2020 by wimvb

[alacant]

Hi

Not sure your intended use but we use both.

The mini in the oag and the fat one on a guide telescope. Both are USB2, the latter having the advantage of the robust USB connection. The mini has the flaky 'phone charger usb-c.

FWIW, the only reason to use the -more expensive- mini is that you can use a helical focuser, otherwiase we'd use the older version as it's cheaper.

Cheaper still, the t7m, a 120 mini clone; identical performance under the same software, alas with the awful d shaped usb 'phone connector

All three work out of the box under Linux.

Cheers and HTH

Edited July 10, 2020 by alacant

[alacant]

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

ASI220MM-S

?

[skybadger]

2 hours ago, alacant said:

Cheaper still, the t7m, a 120 mini clone; identical performance under the same software, alas with the awful d shaped usb 'phone connector

You could always use a sacrificial usb adapter in the way - that way you are connecting/disconnecting from that and not from the camera. Saves the camera connector and keeps it more reliable for longer. 

 

[wimvb]

2 hours ago, alacant said:

?

Typo

120 of course

[northantsnick]

Interesting topic this. I have an original ASI120MM. Usb2 version. I am having real issues getting my new win10 laptop to run the camera. I have downloaded the native zwo drivers but in device manager I get error 10 not enough resources to run api. Yet I put it on my surface Pro (work computer) and it runs fine. 

I don't get it. Anyone any thoughts

Thanks 

Nick

 

[wimvb]

I’ve read somewhere that the standard 120MM works better if you update the firmware. But I’m not at all sure that this is needed with the newer models. Initially, the 120MM used too large data packets, and didn’t follow the usb standard. Updating the firmware fixed this.

[nickarp2000]

I tried that but for some reason I couldn't run the firmware package. Kept getting an error. Maybe I'm doing something wrong

 I'm not great with upgrades and stuff like that

Nick

[alacant]

35 minutes ago, nickarp2000 said:

run the firmware package.

Hi

Here's the compatible usb2/3 firmware. You'll need a Linux box:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1eXBCN06Uz6pGdf-TDd_8ETVW5QRw9zSO

HTH