ASI533MC PRO and ASI294MC Pro

[TheOrion42]

So, I have the Sky-Watcher 72ED, without a flattener or reducer, and I use my DSLR camera Canon EOS 2000. Now I finally decided to ubgrade to dedicated CCD camera, and I ended up choosing between theese two, but I'm just not shure which one should I take.
So if anyone can give me advice and share his/her expirience with the cameras, I whould be very glad.

Clear Skies!!!

[Gary Clayton]

I have used the 533 for over two years and found it to be a very capable camera with the latest sensor and very easy to use regarding calibration frames, I found that with the square sensor it's very easy to frame your subject, in fact I just left it at the same angle all the time so as not having to redo the flat frames after rotating it. The smaller sensor will also help you as your not using a flattener, so you should get better stars in your corners. I can't comment on the 294 but hopefully other's will.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Gary Clayton

[Adam J]

On 22/07/2023 at 00:09, TheOrion42 said:

So, I have the Sky-Watcher 72ED, without a flattener or reducer, and I use my DSLR camera Canon EOS 2000. Now I finally decided to ubgrade to dedicated CCD camera, and I ended up choosing between theese two, but I'm just not shure which one should I take.
So if anyone can give me advice and share his/her expirience with the cameras, I whould be very glad.

Clear Skies!!!

My advice is buy a flattner or a reducer before you buy a dedicated camera.

Adam

[Elp]

I've got both, though I'm yet to test the 533 due to this awful inconsistent weather, the 294 is a swine to calibrate due to the sensor utilised. Look up on the issue. I've managed to get results with it, but due to the inconsistent flat calibration (more to do with bias), I cannot push the data as hard due to the colour residue it leaves behind on the image. Not sure if the mono suffers from the same problem but if it's the same sensor I'm guessing it does. It's a shame as it's a decent sized sensor giving a good FOV. The 533, even with 10 minute dark subs suffers no amp glow when I was testing it, though I'm yet to stack them to assess it fully, the preview images certainly looked amp glow free which I haven't seen on any other sensor, I feel it is a marketing blurb though as my 183 amp glows hard but calibrates fine with dark frames. They are quite similar spec for spec other than the dimensional differences (533/294).

Edited July 23, 2023 by Elp

[Neil_104]

I have the 533 and really like it. My favourite thing about it is indeed the square sensor. I find the square images it produces are a refreshing and striking difference to the more familiar 16:9 format. Absolutely no amp glow on mine (not that it's difficult to deal with anyway really). Cooling is effective, though I tend to stick to -15C in Winter and -10C in summer to ensure I get a stable temp. I've no experience with the 294. I did consider it when looking for a new camera but in the end I was won over with the 533's square sensor, just to be different 😄

[Ratlet]

I run my 533 at -5C and it just don't care.  Produces acceptable images really easily.  

Something I discovered that isn't frequently mentioned is that the small sensor effectively pre-crops images.  I used mine with a 130pds and honestly a coma corrector would provide minimal benefit.

[Planitair]

On 22/07/2023 at 00:09, TheOrion42 said:

So, I have the Sky-Watcher 72ED, without a flattener or reducer, and I use my DSLR camera Canon EOS 2000. Now I finally decided to ubgrade to dedicated CCD camera, and I ended up choosing between theese two, but I'm just not shure which one should I take.
So if anyone can give me advice and share his/her expirience with the cameras, I whould be very glad.

Clear Skies!!!

Just a mention the 533 is a CMOS not CCD, the advantage of modern CMOS is that exposures can be much shorter than with the older CCD.

Eric

[Bukko]

I use the 294MM pro cooled version.

Most of the time, the amp glow is fully corrected using dark frames, never found the need to go over 500s subs, so can't comment on really long exposures.

Been imaging the bubble in NB and with 500s subs and 0c due to high ambient temps, the amp glow is difficult to fully remove using only PI tools. I cannot answer for the coour version, but guess the amp glow might be harder to process out under these conditions.

I use a good corrector and even then, I am prone to some elongation at the corners, so with this camera, a decent corrector is a must.

 

Hope this helps and good luck with your choice.

 

Gordon.

[Elp]

13 hours ago, Bukko said:

I use the 294MM pro cooled version.

Do you experience strange swirly gradient patterns across the image (not a linear LP glow one)? It's to do with the bias signal causing flats to not subtract from the lights correctly.

My 294MC uncooled doesn't necessarily have an issue with amp glow, it's the random colour pattern it generates due to the above and am wondering how the mono version is affected by it.

[AstroNebulee]

I use the zwo asi294mc pro and have no trouble with calibration. The amp glow is calibrated out with dark frames and I no issue taking flat and flat dark frames. I use a ovl flattener on my 72ed so recommended getting the flattener. I also use an Astronomik L3 filter. I like the larger sensor so I can frame most larger targets easier. 

 

Lee

[Elp]

Could be it's very temperature sensitive as mines uncooled. But I don't get this issue with any of my other uncooled cameras. The issue limits a lot how much you can push the faint data, with this one I normally have to keep the space dark, other cameras I can stretch the data to within a inch of its noisy life.

[Bukko]

On 07/09/2023 at 10:18, Elp said:

Do you experience strange swirly gradient patterns across the image (not a linear LP glow one)? It's to do with the bias signal causing flats to not subtract from the lights correctly.

My 294MC uncooled doesn't necessarily have an issue with amp glow, it's the random colour pattern it generates due to the above and am wondering how the mono version is affected by it.

No swirly gradients. Perhaps the difference between the "C" and "M" versions? I also always run it with the 2x2 binning so perhaps that helps to. I have a library of bias and darks for each temperature setpoint I run. (0c is the warmest) PI does an excellent job of processing a mass of subs and makes everything look pretty good.

The nearest I get to your concern would be when pushing hard to bring out the signal, there is some residual gradient, but this is possibly linked to not running enough flats.  But PI does not always fully process out the amp glow and when pushing my luck, it can sometimes be seen. Example would be the S2 content on the Bubble nebula.

Apart from that and the annoyance of ZWO's software not playing with non-ZWO hardware, I have been pretty happy with the camera.