Choosing a dedicated camera and filters.

[Scream]

OK, so I'm in need of some help. To keep a very long story short I'm on the verge of banging my head against a wall as when I think I know something someone comes along and says "Actually" and then someone else says that "Actually" that persons information is wrong. I have a DSLR, Canon 2000D to be exact, not modified. I live in roughly bortle 7 skies. I was looking to get a filter and that filter is the typical Optolong L-eNhance. I was told that "narrowband with a DSLR is not going to make much difference" but someone else said they had their information wrong, this is basically a pattern of my delve into AP. Before and during this I was thinking about a dedicated camera but the problem is I cannot decide what. I don't want to get something that in six months time I want to sell to get something better. From all the research I've done I still haven't gotten any closer to deciding and to be honest the more I read the more I need answering. The ZWO line up is huge and the prices are crazy. My understand is that you really want cooling but the issue is I cannot find lower versions or whatever you want to call them with cooling. The first one I can find with cooling is the ASI183 but that is £800 the price of a scope I was looking at plus a filter, plus a flattener and some adapters. I'm really not sure what to pick or what to do.

To hijack my own thread before even posting I'm going to be asking a question about collimating my F5 newt. I've been having some troubles and not sure if I've collimated properly. (I had a bigger newt that was easier to collimate)

Really appreciate the help, thank you.

[Snoani]

Hi

The L-Enhance is a narrowband filter but it is designed for colour cameras and can/is often used with DSLRs.  I have the similar L-Extreme filter that I use with a Canon 1300D and it produces very nice images.  The issue that you will have though is that your DSRL is not modified and so the filters in the camera will block most of the light that the L-Enhance filter is allowing through.  While a dedicated cooled camera is going to produce images with less noise, with processes such as dithering, DSLRs can produce nice images and can be modified, or purchased modified for far less that a dedicated cooled camera.  I therefore wouldn't automatically go straight for a dedicated camera if you are at the early stages to AP and what to save a little money at the beginning.  

I'm not an expert on newts and so will skip this question. 

Jem

 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Snoani

[rickwayne]

Pardon if you already know much of this, but it's hard to tell.

One really important thing to understand is that different kinds of targets respond best to different approaches. For example, a reflection nebula like the Pleiades or much of the Orion Nebula provide light that an unmodified DSLR will "see" just fine. Galaxies and clusters, same deal. A narrowband filter will, along with light pollution, knock out a lot of the broad-spectrum colored light from such targets (I HAVE NEVER PERSONALLY USED AN L-ENHANCE).

If you want to image emission nebulae (North America, the red bits of Orion), you need something with good frequency response to the hydrogen-alpha transition, emitting at 420 nm. That's getting close  enough to infrared that a consumer camera's IR cut filter will knock it down a lot. By no means to zero, however! I've done emission-nebula work with an unmodified, unfiltered DSLR.

The ZWO lineup is indeed quite extensive, but it's manageable if you categorize. There are so-called "planetary" cameras, with small sensors, high frame rates, usually uncooled. There are cooled and uncooled deep-sky cameras, which are optimized for high quantum efficiency and low noise for dim signals. Except for folks with fairly specialized needs, IMO an uncooled DSO camera doesn't offer enough of an advantage over a DSLR to be worth the extra price. (THAT statement may well be contradicted by someone -- note "in my opinion" there!)

Next up would be sensor size and pixel pitch. For a given optical train, the image circle often limits the useful size of the sensor. (For example, my SV70t-IS covers an APS-C sensor nicely, but vignettes badly on a full-frame one). So that might knock out some of the big-sensor cameras. Then you can look at the size of target that you want to image, and see how it would do on different sensors (I use Stellarium but there are oodles of tools for that). Finally you can look at imaging scale, which relates the optics and the size of the pixels on the sensor to determine the angular size (seconds of arc) of the smallest sky detail you can usefully image. There's a great discussion and a calculator at astronomy.tools, I linked the "CCD suitability" calculator but there are other useful ones there too.

Of course, there's the distinction between "one-shot color" cameras and mono ones, as  well. Mono cameras tend to be more expensive, not less, because of the smaller market for the sensors. If you're doing full-color imaging, mono cameras have some technical advantages, especially in more light-polluted environments, but are admittedly fiddlier since you have to expose and process the channels separately. Mono cameras do enable optimal narrowband imaging, which is crazy-resistant to light pollution. And if you don't mind starting with some black and white images, you can delay the expense of multiple filters and a filter wheel -- just buy a hydrogen-alpha filter and image emission nebulae, without a care in the world about moonlight or city lights. E.g. this, or this, or this, all shot in Bortle 8. Ish.

Edited November 27, 2020 by rickwayne

[david_taurus83]

Just get your camera modified if you only use it for astro. I shot this with a nodded 6D and a good light pollution filter. No fancy duo or tri band filter.

 

[TerryMcK]

So what is the actual question you are asking?