High frame rate lunar imaging camera

[Dunc78]

What's the best value high frame rate lunar planetary solar imaging camera to get? 2nd hand even better...  

[DougM43]

i looked into this not so long ago when there were a lot of excellent images of jupiter being posted here so i decided to give it a go, one of the cameras that seemed to be quite popular and in the hands of experts gave superb images was the Zwo 224 usb3. I ordered one from FLO, attached to my LX90 it gave me around 55fps 

[vlaiv]

1 hour ago, DougM43 said:

i looked into this not so long ago when there were a lot of excellent images of jupiter being posted here so i decided to give it a go, one of the cameras that seemed to be quite popular and in the hands of experts gave superb images was the Zwo 224 usb3. I ordered one from FLO, attached to my LX90 it gave me around 55fps 

actual FPS will depend on several factors - but most important one is the size of frame you are downloading:

Other is actual USB speed of computer and settings in capture software (there is something called usb speed or similar which regulates how much of usb bandwidth is hogged up by camera - raise that value to get better FPS but lower it if you start experiencing unresponsive camera / freezes or similar).

@Dunc78

I concur it is probably ASI224. Given certain priorities - some other model might be better suited (for example, for lunar, size of sensor might be more important than max FPS as moon is rather stationary target that often needs larger FOVs, or for Ha solar due to fact 656nm wavelength is captured with Ha scopes that are often very high F/ratio - larger pixels are important factor in order not to bin the data)

[Dunc78]

Do they do a mono version of the Asi224? 

Don't seem to see anything online. 

[vlaiv]

4 minutes ago, Dunc78 said:

Do they do a mono version of the Asi224? 

Nope.

[Dunc78]

It was my understanding mono gives higher resolution for imaging. Does the increased frame rate counteract this when using modern colour cameras then. I haven't owned a planetary cam for a good while maybe the technology has come on some.? 

[Owmuchonomy]

If you wish to image just the Moon and Sun in Ha then a mono camera is the best bet.  I use two, an ASI174 and an ASI290.

 

[Dunc78]

Which cam is the solar pic taken with? I'm.assuming that's double stacked? 

[Owmuchonomy]

3 hours ago, Dunc78 said:

Which cam is the solar pic taken with? I'm.assuming that's double stacked? 

No it isn't.  That's with the ASI174.

[vlaiv]

5 hours ago, Dunc78 said:

It was my understanding mono gives higher resolution for imaging. Does the increased frame rate counteract this when using modern colour cameras then. I haven't owned a planetary cam for a good while maybe the technology has come on some.? 

In principle yes, but there is clever way of stacking that negates this advantage.

It is implemented in AS!3 - it is called Bayer drizzle. While regular drizzling requires very specific conditions to be effective - Bayer drizzle works almost always with lucky type planetary imaging.

It requires image to constantly move (be dithered) - which happens in lucky imaging due to atmosphere. There is no need to "artificially reduce pixel size" - as pixels are already at the size they ought to be (same size as with mono camera) and so on.

With this approach color cameras are much more effective in general color planetary imaging - there is no need to do separate runs for each filter and to do filter change and refocusing and all of that.

However, for some types of planetary astrophotography - mono is better choice - like Solar Ha or calcium line, UV or infrared, or lunar with different NB filters.

[Vroobel]

There is one factor affecting the FPS which isn't related to the camera or the USB speed, assuming that we work with an USB3. I use a quite fast gaming laptop, strong CPU, fast ports etc. I work with a 2um ASI678MC and I was unable to reach maximum of the FPS which I expected. It was because the AVI was recorded on a system SSD drive which is randomly busy due to an OS. Thankfully, I have second slot for the SSD, so all data related to my astrophotography are stored and processed on the second SSD. The FPS increased dramatically, also PixInsight works much faster since then.