Proposed Atik APX60

[capnclc]

Am I correct in my calculation that 2" filters will be adequate for a full frame chip?  The camera looks very inviting!

[gorann]

7 minutes ago, capnclc said:

Am I correct in my calculation that 2" filters will be adequate for a full frame chip?  The camera looks very inviting!

Yes you are but you need them to be very close to the sensor, so both QHY and ASI sell dedicated electronic filter wheels that are attached close to the camera. I assume ATIK has to come up with a similar solution.

Edited April 8, 2021 by gorann

[DaveS]

2" mounted filters will be marginal depending on the focal ratio of the telescope and back focus from the filter. 50mm unmounted are safer.

[capnclc]

Thanks for that.  I am currently using an Atik 16200 with an EFW 3, 2" mounted directly to the camera.  The scope is a TAK 106.

[gorann]

3 minutes ago, DaveS said:

2" mounted filters will be marginal depending on the focal ratio of the telescope and back focus from the filter. 50mm unmounted are safer.

As I said you need the filters to be close and with my ASI6200MM on the Esptit 150 I use the dedicated ZWO filter wheel for 2" filters and there is no vignetting from the fiters. Works great.

[DaveS]

Yes, you posted just as I was hitting Submit Reply.

[DaveS]

QHY also do a short BF version of the 600M with 12.5mm BF like the 268.

[tomato]

If the sensor manufacturers don't guarantee them in AP cameras (it is a pretty far out application when you think about it) then we have to rely on the camera manufacturer's warranty and that's it.

So you pays your money and you takes your choice, personally I'm more concerned about expensive precision machined mounts going on the blink, metal parts rubbing together and all that.

[Horwig]

3 hours ago, gorann said:

or in the worst case it is the CCD owners here that do not like the new generation taking over🤪

I am one CCD owner who has just passed his full frame CCD to a new owner and is expecting his ZWO 6200 to arrive tomorrow😀.

Some years ago I imaged M31 with Olly at Les Granges, using my FSQ106, it took a few nights.

Lumianance in a six panel mosaic using my QSI6120 at 382mm, and the RGB in a single frame using my SX35 full frame at 530mm.

I've just looked back at the resulting image, it's 3.52 x 2.24 degrees that's 7565 x 4819 pixels at 1.68 "/pixel, and a lot of hard work to capture and process a smooth 6 panel mosaic, with a matching widefield image.

The 6200 on the Tak at native 530mm should give 3.89 x 2.60 degrees, 9576 x 6388 pixels at 1.48"/pixel. AND THAT'S IN A SINGLE PAIN FREE FRAME.

 

The learning curve starts here (again).

 

Huw

[Horwig]

OK, so this strictly is OT, but is probably of interest to anybody looking at the ATIK version of the ZWO camera as well.

I've posted this in imaging. There's loads wrong with it, but none of the negatives are to do with the camera.

This is a 30% rendition, faults, the scope needs collimation, the camera was not screwed tightly onto the filter wheel, and moved over the imaging run (OK, I know, I know). Also because of this, flats don't match anything, and this was processed without.

Looking at the positives, this is 70 minutes of Luminance in 5 min subs, RGB were 20 minutes each, also in 5 min subs, scope was 1450mm fl at f3.6, so quite fast.

Pixel peeping at the data , max ADU was 58368, will do further tests to see if this is a realistic figure of saturation or just a reflection of the lack of collimation.

by 50% mod, (2768 ADU) only 30 ish star cores were saturating, so maybe 5 minute subs are very conservative?

The plan was to get the camera hooked up to my FSQ106 for first light, but the Tak 72-98 adaptor I require won't be here for months.

There was no noise reduction in this image, and only minimal sharpening in photoshop.

 

I've put a new (to me) i7 PC in the obsy with usb 3, but my processing PC, a twin 4 core 3GHz Xeon with 16 Gig of ram was struggling.

 

The learning curve starts.

 

Huw

 

 

 

[Horwig]

9 hours ago, Horwig said:

 

 

 

 

 

sorry, double posted

 

Edited April 19, 2021 by Horwig

[Horwig]

Sorry, managed to double post instead of editing, if the mods could please remove if they see this.

Sorry

 

Huw

[Ken82]

On 08/04/2021 at 22:40, DaveS said:

2" mounted filters will be marginal depending on the focal ratio of the telescope and back focus from the filter. 50mm unmounted are safer.

This is very true. I started using 2” mounted filters with my asi 6200 but I noticed nearly every image I had star reflections at the edges of the picture. It turned out that the star was reflecting off the metal on the filter cell. 
 

I changed to 50mm unmounted and I’ve not had this issue since. 
 

Of course this very much depends on your f ratio. 
 

Ken 

 

[DaveS]

I put some figures into Astronomy Tools, and measured up a couple of spare 2" filters that I had kicking around as I was considering selling off my G3 16200 for something more modern, but realised that my 2" Chroma filters would vignette at any spacing.

So I would have to move up to 50 mm anyway, putting the kibosh on that idea.

[Ken82]

2 minutes ago, DaveS said:

I put some figures into Astronomy Tools, and measured up a couple of spare 2" filters that I had kicking around as I was considering selling off my G3 16200 for something more modern, but realised that my 2" Chroma filters would vignette at any spacing.

So I would have to move up to 50 mm anyway, putting the kibosh on that idea.

Yea I measured the clear aperture of baader filters to be 45.39mm. With 50mm unmounted it’s about 48mm which makes a difference. 
 

[DaveS]

The two I tried were an Astronomik CLS and an IDAS P2. The CLS went 43.85, the P2 went 43.0. Haven't measured the Chromas as they're in the filter wheel.