Camera required

[muletopia]

Hello folks,
As my QHY8l is probably dead I am looking to replace it with a large pixel one shot colour camera.
One that seems to fit the bill is the Starlight xpress trius pro 25c. Has any one have experience with this camera?

Or any other suggestions?
Chris

[Elp]

What kind of fov do you want and budget as that's usually the main dictators.

 

[doublevodka]

https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/ may be a good place to start using imaging mode so you can get an idea of how objects will be framed with your setup, and then you can change cameras to see how it looks.

As @Elp said, your budget will be a key factor. Based on the Starlight's price, have you looked at some of the ZWO offerings? For example https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo/zwo-asi-2600mc-duo-usb-30-cooled-colour-self-guiding-camera.html is quite an interesting new camera on the market.

[vlaiv]

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi071mc-pro-usb-30-cooled-colour-camera.html

Pixel sizes have decreased in recent years so above is one of few with sensible size. Most new cameras have below 4um and some even below 3um pixel size.

[muletopia]

For Elp

fov       ;   about 30 seconds from my Mewlon  250

budget ;   they are all expensive so just bite the bullet and get a suitable camera

[Elp]

That Starlight has quite large pixels at 7.8um  so should be quite reasonable in terms of speed, you'd struggle to find similar pixels sizes elsewhere but you could always bin your images to get an equivalent result at the cost of resolution.

I'm only familiar with ZWO, the 2600 is a popular one for apsc type sized sensor.

[muletopia]

Yes Vlaiv, both the Starlight  and the QHY8l have 7.8 micron pixels. The Starlight  uses a Sony ICX453AQ sensor and the QHY a Sony ICX413AQ sensor but I can not find anywhere to tell me the difference between these sensors

[vlaiv]

10 hours ago, muletopia said:

Yes Vlaiv, both the Starlight  and the QHY8l have 7.8 micron pixels. The Starlight  uses a Sony ICX453AQ sensor and the QHY a Sony ICX413AQ sensor but I can not find anywhere to tell me the difference between these sensors

Look at their specs.

There are several important factors - quantum efficiency, read noise and so on and compare.

You can even throw new CMOS sensors in the mix if you accept that you'll need to bin your data to get appropriate pixel size, and in doing so in software - count read noise as being multiplied by bin factor. If you bin x2 - read noise is multiplied by x2 as well.

If you look at it that way - modern CMOS sensors win even if they have small pixel size.

Here is example:

ASI2600 vs Starlight:

Native pixel size of 3.76 which can bi binned x2 you get 7.52um vs 7.8.um - so slight advantage Starlight, but difference is small

Both are APS-C sensor, so sensor size is a tie

ASI2600 has 50K full well capacity, while Starlight has half that at 24K

Read noise of Starlight is "less than 12e, but typically 7e" while read noise of ASI2600 is ~1.4e at unity gain, so double that to 2.8e when binned in software - again less than half of Starlight - ASI2600 wins here

ASI2600 has 80% peak QE while Starlight has 50% so ASI wins again.

Price of ASI is less than that of Starlight - win ASI

Both cool to 35C blow ambient to so that is a tie.

Overall - ASI2600 is better option in my view, but I did this more so you can see what you should consider when choosing between cameras.

[muletopia]

well Vlaiv , another camera with 7.8 micron pixels us the QHY 8L. I have ordered one from a UK supplier, His quote includes VAT. When I bought my Mesumout from Mr Mesu  The was no European VAT. So shoud the same apply from the UK to a another country?

[vlaiv]

1 minute ago, muletopia said:

well Vlaiv , another camera with 7.8 micron pixels us the QHY 8L. I have ordered one from a UK supplier, His quote includes VAT. When I bought my Mesumout from Mr Mesu  The was no European VAT. So shoud the same apply from the UK to a another country?

As far as I understand, if there is no some sort of trade agreement between countries - when you purchase from another country, VAT of that country is removed but your local VAT is applied along with any import duty.

When people from EU purchase in EU - they don't go thru that. They pay VAT as expressed, regardless of which country they are in and where from (in EU) they are purchasing.

However, when I purchase from either EU countries or say UK or any other country, I purchase with VAT removed, but then when item arrives, provided that it is above certain amount (I think it is around 70 euro mark) - I get charged local 20% VAT on it as well as 10% general import duty. There are different tariffs for import duty and businesses get accurate tariff applied, but most people get general import duty unless they explicitly get someone to do the paper work of assigning a proper import tariff.

In any case, I believe that VAT will be subtracted, but you are likely to pay local VAT + import duty.

[ollypenrice]

In my view it would be crazy to let pixel size drive you towards CCD and away from modern CMOS.cameras, especially for OSC. The new cameras make OSC seriously attractive. I'm using two 2600 cameras now.

Olly

Edit: if you want a CCD, buy second hand. They fetch nothing on the used.market.

Edited December 25, 2023 by ollypenrice