Upgrading from D5600, ASI533MC pro?

[900SL]

Hi

Looking to move to a dedicated camera from my unmodded D5600 (great camera but noisy in the temperatures where I live)

The 533 looks like a good fit as I already have the ASI air pro. The pixel scale is similar, the FOV cropped a little but that suits my targets. I use a Fornax LT2 and don't dither. Bortle 2-4 locally 

Any real issues out there in service such as oil on sensor, cooling, etc? Is the 3000 sq pixel sensor overly restrictive? 

 

 

 

[drjolo]

I think you may miss the frame area - it is not a "cropped a little". Nikon's APS-C has 370mm2, 533 area is 128mm2 - that is a significant difference. 

You may check ASI294, that is 247mm2.

[900SL]

3 hours ago, drjolo said:

I think you may miss the frame area - it is not a "cropped a little". Nikon's APS-C has 370mm2, 533 area is 128mm2 - that is a significant difference. 

You may check ASI294, that is 247mm2.

Yes, it is quite a crop checking on Telescopius, nice framing on my usual targets though. Pixel scale seems a good match to my GT71 but I guess without goto it will be a bit tricky getting DSO framed accurately? 

[drjolo]

I think it can be tricky. However if you control the camera from the computer you may still use plate solving to pinpoint the target. I have done this when imaging with SW Adventurer. You take a few seconds shot, plate solve it (there are many software that do it, like PlateSolve 2 for example) and then you will get the actual position. Then move the scope manually, capture another image and plate solve again till the position error will be small enough. You only need to provide your setup pixel scale and approximate coordinates to plate solve software, so the process will be faster. Approx. coordinates may be the coordinates you want to achieve. 

[newbie alert]

3 hours ago, drjolo said:

I think it can be tricky. However if you control the camera from the computer you may still use plate solving to pinpoint the target. I have done this when imaging with SW Adventurer. You take a few seconds shot, plate solve it (there are many software that do it, like PlateSolve 2 for example) and then you will get the actual position. Then move the scope manually, capture another image and plate solve again till the position error will be small enough. You only need to provide your setup pixel scale and approximate coordinates to plate solve software, so the process will be faster. Approx. coordinates may be the coordinates you want to achieve. 

How does this work manually moving to match the plate solve, don't think I've ever seen a direction to move the mount, I've used ps3 , ASTAP , allsky platesover and they all work in more or less the same manner.... how would you know which direction to move?

[drjolo]

You need to remember that RA increases to the east, and Dec increases to up. So when your solved coordinates RA is smaller than target and Dec is larger than target, then you need to move east and bottom. The amount of movement you need to determine experimentally  

If you use PlateSolve 2 and enter target as Starting parameters, then you will see both starting and solved values and you can compare easily:

Edited January 5, 2022 by drjolo

[900SL]

On 05/01/2022 at 16:04, drjolo said:

I think it can be tricky. However if you control the camera from the computer you may still use plate solving to pinpoint the target. I have done this when imaging with SW Adventurer. You take a few seconds shot, plate solve it (there are many software that do it, like PlateSolve 2 for example) and then you will get the actual position. Then move the scope manually, capture another image and plate solve again till the position error will be small enough. You only need to provide your setup pixel scale and approximate coordinates to plate solve software, so the process will be faster. Approx. coordinates may be the coordinates you want to achieve. 

Many thanks, Ive been trying the platesolve function on the AsiAirPro and it works perfectly. The screen will display annotations for the stars/DSO's etc so you can quickly work out where you are and manually adjust (trial and error but I have angle scales on the RA and Dec so can get there fairly quickly)