Sony a6000

[CCD-Freak]

Hi everyone...

Does anyone use a Sony a6000 for astro imaging???   What do you think of it and how is the noise?  Got any sample images to post ???  

I am putting together a portable imaging setup and the a6000 might be just the ticket.

 

John
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

[runway77]

I used Sony a5000 camera for a while. I used the Imaging Edge software to capture the photos. Overall, it was a very lightweight camera. The biggest limitation of this camera is that in bulb mode (even when shooting RAW) you cannot deactivate a noise reduction algorithm which tends to remove faint stars (known as Star Eater).  This is the case with the Sony a6000 as well. That was for me unfortunately a deal breaker. However, take a look at some photos at astrobin, there are many amazing photos taken with the Sony a6000 camera. I am now using Canon m200 with the Backyard EOS Software and I am very happy with it.

[Mick J]

Towards the end of Mark Shelley's thread are descriptions of using with the latest filmware/edge software, some one post posters, nice of them and thank you.

And I have added a post regarding Ascom connection here

I find the battery is mostly flat and far to many buttons and information on the screen - but that's just me, I now have a dummy battery that I run off a 5V usb supply, not using the camera for astro imaging but would expect it to work as well as any other dslr.

Well worth looking into John

  

[Gfamily]

1 hour ago, runway77 said:

I used Sony a5000 camera for a while. I used the Imaging Edge software to capture the photos. Overall, it was a very lightweight camera. The biggest limitation of this camera is that in bulb mode (even when shooting RAW) you cannot deactivate a noise reduction algorithm which tends to remove faint stars (known as Star Eater).  This is the case with the Sony a6000 as well. That was for me unfortunately a deal breaker. However, take a look at some photos at astrobin, there are many amazing photos taken with the Sony a6000 camera. I am now using Canon m200 with the Backyard EOS Software and I am very happy with it.

You can disable the NR on the A5000 by using Continuous Bracketing (0.3 EV) Mode. None of the bracketing modes uses NR, and continuous bracketing allows the use of Bulb exposures.

 

[runway77]

1 hour ago, Gfamily said:

You can disable the NR on the A5000 by using Continuous Bracketing (0.3 EV) Mode. None of the bracketing modes uses NR, and continuous bracketing allows the use of Bulb exposures.

 

There are multiple noise reduction steps in the Sony Alpha cameras. One of them is the long exposure noise reduction in the bulb mode. This can be disabled with the continuous bracketing mode as you write. For advanced users, one can even disable it permanently using a telnet command: https://github.com/ma1co/OpenMemories-Tweak/issues/169

However, this is not the kind of noise reduction I meant. The star eater spatial filtering applied in the bulb mode is discussed here: https://petapixel.com/2017/05/04/star-eater-issue-no-longer-recommend-sony-cameras-astrophotography/.

This noise reduction cannot be disabled. There are even petitions against it but Sony refuses to enable the users to disable it. I tested this with my Sony A5000 camera, I could clearly observe this effect. 30 second exposures were not affected. However, looking at Astrobin, I can see that there are many amazing photos taken with this camera: https://www.astrobin.com/search/?q=Sony A6000. So I would definitely at least try it. For me, the biggest problems with this camera were the initial focusing, as there is no live view support in Sony a5000 and the star eater issue.

Edited January 1, 2021 by runway77