svbony sv605cc imx533 cooled camera

TiffsAndAstro · July 31

hi there. hope this is ok to post and to post here

this is a review of my new svbony sv605cc imx533 based tec cooled camera. From the point of view of someone new to the very straightforward and inexpensive hobby that is astrophotography. Rita at svbony
suggested i write a review and post it, but all my babbling is entirely my own with no input from anywhere else.

some background about me: i bought a i bought a 15 year old pentax k-x dslr, some vintage lens and an ir remote control at the end of dec 2023 and a poor quality but cheap tripod & ball
head. After getting fed up of activating the ir remote control 300 times a night, i sold it and bought a 14 year old canon 600d dslr end of jan 2024, together with a wired intervelometer.
End of feb 2024 i bought a star watcher star adventurer gti from first light optics and its tripod (from ebay). roughly a month later i bought the sky watcher 72ed evostar from first light optics.
about a month ago i bought the svbony sv605cc directly from svbony's website. id like to point out that the help and support i've had from Star Gazer's Lounge website has been incredible. without it
i'd likely still be trying to polar align successfully as i write this.

buying experience: I had a few email back and forths with Nina (no relation) at svbony over about a week. Her english was excellent and usually replied within 12 hours. after confirming i had everything
needed to connect the sv605cc to my telescope and taking advantage of a sale i paid £514 (including a import taxes etc included addtional fee of about £2) for the camera, filter drawer, two filter
drawer holders and a uv/ir cut filter and it arrived 12 days after buying it at about 4pm on a saturday afternoon. on arrival, i noticed it included a uk plugged 12v 2a power supply, svbony baseball
cap & tshirt, leather bound note pad. also an svbony 1x to 5x variable barlow lens, which is still in its box. maybe one day ill use it for imaging planets? i paid no extra import/vat/duty or
handling fees and royal mail delivered it.

installed drivers from svbony's website and nina works fine. however, most other brands imx533 sensors seem to use an offset of 50. in nina the sv605cc only offers a range of 1-100 and after using Cuiv
the Lazy Geek's video method i set mine to 5 (five). this works well enough for me that i haven't bothered experimenting with say 10 or 20 just to compare. using 101 gain also seems ideal due to the
sharpcap test i ran. i've attached some photos of stuff below. in use, the camera is hard to fault. i currently try to complete my 3ppa in Nina before it reaches my preset temp of minus 5c. many use minus 10c but i can't see the point in that in case the UK gets
30c at night last session camera reported 24 degrees and cooled to -5c in a couple of minutes, slowly ramping up power usage in chunks.holding -5c used about 60% power. compared to my 600d
Nina's 3 point polar alignment is even smoother and can polar align with 5sec subs way before i can see stars.

criticisms: im having to try really hard to find some, so below are extra critical criticisms just so this review at least appears balanced. none of them are of much consequence.
no usb two port hub as most competitor brand's imx533 based cooled cameras seem to have.
svbony's tracking system could be better. it listed my package as shipped and waiting pickup by courier for about 10 days. then updated to its through customs and out for delivery.
there is no dew heater for the ar glass.
svbony's website is a confusing mess of changing offers, often with a product's page seemingly half updated between the last sale/offer and current one.
im struggling to position the filter drawer directly next to the camera. this is likely a noob issue that i'd face no matter which brand of camera i bought.

if you got this far, thanks for reading and sorry if the above was a bit too stream of conciousnessy. the more entertaining part is below i hope.

all images below are taken with the above gear and sv605cc from a suburban back yard in nw england bortle6. no filters other than uv/ir cut used, no narrowband. all are terribly low total integration times
as im a noob and don't take advice terribly well. veil nebula is a 4 panel mosaic for test purposes.