ASI533MM Pro

[david_taurus83]

I already posted my first light attempts with this camera here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/395575-another-asi533mm-first-light-nellys-trunk/

 

I collected more data on this again last night but not processed yet. Thought I would start a new thread in here anyway for all things 533 mono related. I will start with the hiccups I had when first connecting.

Swapping the Atik 460. The Atik has a female M42 thread on the camera and is quoted as around 13mm back spacing. The ASI has the usual 6.5mm from the body so I used the M42/M48 ring to connect to a 7.5mm M48 spacer I already have which gave me 14mm back space. I just needed to buy a female M48 adapter for the Starlight filterwheel. Despite the 1mm difference my OAG is still in good focus and star shapes are nice and round with the ASI.

Test shots in NINA. This is where I started encountering issues. After connecting fine at first, after a couple of test shots I got my first image download error. I recycled the USB ports on my Pegasus Power Box and reconnected. Somehow NINA connected the ASI120 guide camera in its place but said I was connected to the 533. I tried changing USB speed settings, different cables, different ports, driver updates etc all with intermittent connectivity issues or image download problems. I eventually tried Sharpcap and this seemed to work fine and I managed to polar align the mount. Switch back to NNA and had issues again. Eventually I worked out that it doesn't like (or NINA doesn't like it) to be connected via the Pegasus Power Box. The PBB is USB3 but I have that connected to a Startech USB2 to ethernet device. I connected the camera directly to the Startech hub and the issue virtually went away. A small irritation but not a deal breaker as can still switch the camera on and off via the PBB power ports.

Cool down time. Though I usually set NINA to allow 10 minutes for both cool down and warm up, if I let the driver control it it does seem relatively slow compared to the Atik. It probably takes 5/10 minutes to get down to -15°C anyway from ambient. Where the Atik will stop dead on -10°C and stay there, the ASI tends to overshoot by up to 1°C and then slowly raises back up to the target temp. Again, hardly any thermal noise with this camera so no big deal if we are +/- 1°C here or there.

Driver control. When initially struggling with connection, I was surprised to find out there is no option (in NINA at least) to select an ASCOM driver. The only option is to use the native driver and use the gain, offset and USB settings from within NINA.

 

Apart from the above mentioned niggles, testing over 2 nights went well. No disconnections or image download issues. Focus runs went well and flats are so much quicker to take than with the Atik. I collected another hour Ha and 40 mins each on SO on IC1396 last night so will try and get a cleaner result with the extra subs. Its looking very pleasing so far with this camera. Before I parked up last night I took a single 300s sub on M16 at 3am.