ZWO ASI990MM-PRO- What's the use case?

[catburglar]

Just seen the ASI990MM-PRO listed on FLO (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi990mm-pro-swir-short-wave-infrared-dso-cooled-camera.html)

Interested to know if anybody can describe the astronomical use case. It's a small chip, big pixel, high read noise camera with extended IR sensitivity but little in the visual range.

Puzzled.

[vlaiv]

At that price, I think I'll pass

[catburglar]

I was planning on getting two for my dual rig 😂...as soon as I know what I'd use them for...

[tomato]

Maybe one to go for if you want to emulate the JWST, Earth's atmosphere is a bit of a problem though.

[ONIKKINEN]

Maybe useful for IR photometry? Dont need a big chip for that.

[catburglar]

Yep- that’s one that’s listed in the material on the site too, but I figured it’s such a small chip that you’d struggle to get suitable comp and check stars in the same FoV as the target…on the plus side you probably wouldn’t have to worry about variations in atmospheric absorption because target and comp are at different altitudes.

I guess they wouldn’t have built it if there wasn’t a market for it…

[DaveS]

This looks to be similar to the QHY 990. Not cheap!

[CraigT82]

Might be good for Venus imaging

[vlaiv]

2 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

Might be good for Venus imaging

I very much doubt it, at least not for lucky type imaging - it has 20+ (going up to 50) e of read noise!

I really can't see any good astronomy use for this camera, and certainly not at that price.

For someone wanting to do a bit of NIR imaging - there are other models, far cheaper that will let you image up to 1um.

Wavelengths between 1um and 2um are quite a bit blocked by atmosphere (not completely but there are a few dips).

Spectroscopy comes to mind - but there are very few pixels available for high resolution work (can be done - but small part of spectrum can be resolved at any given time).

 

[CraigT82]

I mean nightside Venus imaging: longer (1s) exposures at above 1 micron to detect surface features (as opposed to cloud features). Granted a very niche appplication. But yeah the read noise may still be too much for the faint night side signal

[wimvb]

On 16/09/2022 at 12:53, tomato said:

Maybe one to go for if you want to emulate the JWST, Earth's atmosphere is a bit of a problem though.

Are the cameras supplied with an appropriate diffraction mask?