Finally jumped in the deep end

[Highburymark]

Just ordered my first astro camera - an asi1600 which will be 95% used for solar Ha. Have spent six years as a visual-only guy, but am literally starting at the beginning as an imager, so this feels like a first leap into the deep end of the swimming pool as a kid.
Still have to work out which laptop to buy and software to download (scope is 600mm refractor with 70mm double stack filters), so will be some time before I get going - but looking forward to participating more in this forum. Hopefully your guidance can provide me with some buoyancy as I splash around desperately trying to stay afloat.

[Luke]

Congrats on the camera! Look forward to seeing your images. The ASI1600 is new on me - that's a 16 megapixel camera that can do 23 frames per second? With a huge sensor (17.3x13.4mm)?

[Merlin66]

I think you ‘ll be very pleased with the ASI 1600.

i use the ASI 1600 for all my solar imaging, WL, CaK and Ha.

with the ED80 and Baader Hyperion Barlow, or the TV x2.5 PM I can get good full disk coverage.

Frame rates up to 60 fps are common. You need a fast computer and an SSD drive.

I went for the sexy MSI gaming laptop, VERY fast! Works well for me.

FireCapture for acquisition, AS3! for stacking and IMPPG for tweaking.

[Highburymark]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Congrats on the camera! Look forward to seeing your images. The ASI1600 is new on me - that's a 16 megapixel camera that can do 23 frames per second? With a huge sensor (17.3x13.4mm)?

Thanks Luke - have been well advised that the 1600 is the best for my set up, for both full disks and close ups. 

 

33 minutes ago, Merlin66 said:

I think you ‘ll be very pleased with the ASI 1600.

i use the ASI 1600 for all my solar imaging, WL, CaK and Ha.

with the ED80 and Baader Hyperion Barlow, or the TV x2.5 PM I can get good full disk coverage.

Frame rates up to 60 fps are common. You need a fast computer and an SSD drive.

I went for the sexy MSI gaming laptop, VERY fast! Works well for me.

FireCapture for acquisition, AS3! for stacking and IMPPG for tweaking.

Thanks Ken - your posts here and on Solarchat helped me make my decision. 

[Davey-T]

Well done Mark and good luck with solar imaging, hope the Sun shines for us all this summer.

On the laptop front I use an external USB3 drive to capture my solar images to, these can then be processed on it and then only need to transfer Tiffs to laptop for processing, saves clogging up main drive with loads of videos.

You can view them in SER Player before processing and delete rubbish ones.

Dave

[Highburymark]

26 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Well done Mark and good luck with solar imaging, hope the Sun shines for us all this summer.

On the laptop front I use an external USB3 drive to capture my solar images to, these can then be processed on it and then only need to transfer Tiffs to laptop for processing, saves clogging up main drive with loads of videos.

You can view them in SER Player before processing and delete rubbish ones.

Dave

Thanks Dave - I noticed you’d talked about your external capturing and processing set up on previous threads. It all sounds great. Is it easy for a newbie to construct and operate such a system? That would be my only concern. Otherwise I was going to go for a reconditioned laptop with internal 1tb SSD and 16GB. 

[Davey-T]

3 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

Otherwise I was going to go for a reconditioned laptop with internal 1tb SSD and 16GB. 

No harm in having the best spec' you can afford but still easier to save to a 1tb external USB3 and save cluttering up the drive.

Just a matter of plugging in the drive and creating a folder called Sun or some such on it, if you use Firecapture for imaging and point it at the Sun folder it will start a new sub folder for every new date.

Unless you particularly want to capture the full disc you can draw a region of interest around a sunspot or prom and just image those which will keep the file sizes down and capture speed up.

Dave

 

[Saganite]

Good on ya Mark, very much look forward seeing to your images .  

[Luke]

19 hours ago, Merlin66 said:

I think you ‘ll be very pleased with the ASI 1600.

i use the ASI 1600 for all my solar imaging, WL, CaK and Ha.

with the ED80 and Baader Hyperion Barlow, or the TV x2.5 PM I can get good full disk coverage.

Frame rates up to 60 fps are common. You need a fast computer and an SSD drive.

I went for the sexy MSI gaming laptop, VERY fast! Works well for me.

FireCapture for acquisition, AS3! for stacking and IMPPG for tweaking.

Sweet! I take it 60FPS is with region of interest, not the full 16MP? (for me 23 FPS already sounds fast enough and on that huge sensor! I found 16 FPS fine for my needs).

Do you have any problems keeping the big sensor parallel? I hope that makes sense.  I mean so that it is all in sharp focus (little tilt). I ask because I seemed to get edges a bit out of focus with a smaller chip and am not sure if that was tilt, someone suggested it may have been due to tilt.

 

On 01/04/2021 at 15:38, Highburymark said:

Just ordered my first astro camera - an asi1600 which will be 95% used for solar Ha.

Mark, what are you planning to do with the other 5% (not solar Ha)?

[Highburymark]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

 

 

Mark, what are you planning to do with the other 5% (not solar Ha)?

Good question. For the next few weeks, I’m going to unbox it and admire it. Then, maybe a bit of lunar and white light. And who knows, maybe CaK one day?

[Luke]

I like your plan to admire it for a few weeks! It looks a beast! Good luck with getting everything sorted out and picking your lappy.

[Merlin66]

Luke,

Depending on ROI, say for some of the smaller AR, yes high frame rates are common.

I usually image at f15 to f18 (limited by poor seeing) and have the T2 tilter fitted to suppress NR in Ha.

I can’t say I’ve noticed any significant OOF impact at the edges.

 

[Rusted]

Get cracking! There is no absolutely excuse for recalcitrance with a shiny new camera!
Especially a shiny new ASI1600 bright red Roundtoit!

Get a fast imaging laptop with SSDs and lots of USB3 ports and you won't regret it.
I used Samsung T5 external SSDs on my ASUS N552V imaging laptop on USB3 cables and ports.
They were always a nuisance dangling off the imaging desk and using up ports.
I was constantly clearing them of videos at short intervals to make room for more.

So I replaced the only [tiny] 256Gb SSD internal drive with a pair of internal 1TB SSDs: Samsung 860 & 970.
Speed increased noticeably over the 1TB T5 external SSD and startup time considerably shortened.

The ASUS has a hi-res screen when open, but drives my 27" Hi-res AOC imaging monitor for my observatory.
Seeing such a huge, live, image of the sun in H-a is a great aid to finding and imaging interesting detail and proms.

I use the ASI174MM with my long focal lengths on my PST mod refractor. 150mm F/10 x various GPCs for even more scale.
Solar imaging literally took over my life and I practically live in the dome whenever it is sunny.
Lots of imaging time means lots of practice getting it right. Plus lots more chances for better seeing.
Lots of active time means the costs per week, day, hour or minute actually begin to make sense. If only to yourself.