Altair 294 pro color fan cooled vs Orion StarShoot G3 Deep Space Color Imaging Camera for 300p Goto skywatcher Dob

[KHIZAR KHAN]

Hi ,I am a novice and buying it for my son for his birthday.

I am getting both at same price £300. can someone please guide because I am keeping  the Altair at hold max till this evening (its an ex-display hence cheap)

Thanks

Khizar

[Stuart1971]

Well first of all the Altair is a newer CMOS sensor and the Orion is an older CCD, in my opinion, CCD colour cameras on the whole are not that sensitive, whereas the CMOS colour are more so

The cooling on the Orion will be better, as I think it’s TEC set point cooled, and the Altair is just a constant fan blowing, so the Orion wins there.

The sensor on the Altair is larger by  some, and so that wins there….

Difficult, but if it were me and I had to pick one of these two cameras, I would go for the Altair….just my opinion… 👍🏼

[vlaiv]

Depends on what the camera is going to be used for?

You mention 300p goto dobsonian telescope? That in itself is going to pose a problem - such scope is really suited for planetary work, and neither of those two cameras are very good for planetary work. Planetary work really demands certain style of imaging - called lucky imaging.

Second thing that you might try is EEVA/EEA approach - a lot of short exposures stacked (this is because AltAz mount causes field rotation and tracking on that mount is not going to be good for anything longer than 1-2 seconds) - in that case go for Altair camera. Lack of cooling is really not issue there as read noise will dominate dark current and it is easy to grab few dark frames in same conditions - as you'll be using short exposures.

 

[Adam J]

On 14/12/2021 at 13:57, vlaiv said:

Depends on what the camera is going to be used for?

You mention 300p goto dobsonian telescope? That in itself is going to pose a problem - such scope is really suited for planetary work, and neither of those two cameras are very good for planetary work. Planetary work really demands certain style of imaging - called lucky imaging.

Second thing that you might try is EEVA/EEA approach - a lot of short exposures stacked (this is because AltAz mount causes field rotation and tracking on that mount is not going to be good for anything longer than 1-2 seconds) - in that case go for Altair camera. Lack of cooling is really not issue there as read noise will dominate dark current and it is easy to grab few dark frames in same conditions - as you'll be using short exposures.

 

Its possible that DSO lucky imaging of galaxies with a ASI290mm would be a good bet. 10k x 2second exposures.

[vlaiv]

9 hours ago, Adam J said:

Its possible that DSO lucky imaging of galaxies with a ASI290mm would be a good bet. 10k x 2second exposures.

On a 300p with 2.9µm pixel camera?

Too small FOV and one would need to bin at least x3. That reduces pixel count to 640x320 and increases read noise x3 which is not very good for short exposures.

[Adam J]

1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

On a 300p with 2.9µm pixel camera?

Too small FOV and one would need to bin at least x3. That reduces pixel count to 640x320 and increases read noise x3 which is not very good for short exposures.

300MM F5. With a ASI290mm,

http://indexhamal.pl/astrofotografia/galaxies/images/NGC4490_ASI290MMC.png

I have seen many examples with 1-5 second expsoures with a 290 at max gain. Works for small bright galaxies in mono. 

You do need to find the target though. 

Adam

Edited December 16, 2021 by Adam J

[vlaiv]

5 hours ago, Adam J said:

300MM F5. With a ASI290mm,

http://indexhamal.pl/astrofotografia/galaxies/images/NGC4490_ASI290MMC.png

I have seen many examples with 1-5 second expsoures with a 290 at max gain. Works for small bright galaxies in mono. 

You do need to find the target though. 

Adam

That is rather nice image - however - over sampled .

You are right - one can make nice images with that gear (300p + ASI290) - but it is not for novice imager and it will over sample.

or

One of these two is original - other has been resized down by 50% and then enlarged back to 100%.

See any difference? In another words - image is over sampled by at least double.

 

[Adam J]

16 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

That is rather nice image - however - over sampled .

You are right - one can make nice images with that gear (300p + ASI290) - but it is not for novice imager and it will over sample.

or

One of these two is original - other has been resized down by 50% and then enlarged back to 100%.

See any difference? In another words - image is over sampled by at least double.

 

The point is more the untra low read noise of the 290 make ultra short exposure possible so if you dont have a good mount for AP you can still have a go and the short exposures mitigate seeing to a useful extent. Its possible that the 482 may work well as an OSC option. But in this area of imaging the 290 is a safe bet. 

Adam