svbony sv605cc imx533 cooled camera

[TiffsAndAstro]

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. 

 

 

 

 

2024-07-18_19-46-03__-4.80_600.00s_0005.fits

Edited July 31 by TiffsAndAstro

[alacant]

Hi
From which type of glass is the window directly in front of the sensor made? Does it act as a uv-ir cut filter?
My boss says I must fit this arrangement to any 605. Must I? To be fair, the bits were supplied -along with lots of other chinese-free-gift type stuff- but I can't find a definitive answer.
Any ideas?

TIA

[TiffsAndAstro]

35 minutes ago, alacant said:

Hi
From which type of glass is the window directly in front of the sensor made? Does it act as a uv-ir cut filter?
My boss says I must fit this arrangement to any 605. Must I? To be fair, the bits were supplied -along with lots of other chinese-free-gift type stuff- but I can't find a definitive answer.
Any ideas?

TIA

I use a UV/ir cut on my 605cc via a filter draw. I replace it with my dual narrowband filter and don't use both together.

I think they all have clear non IR blocking glass as standard but could email 

In Nina I use gain 101 and offset 20 for broadband and dual narrowband for 60 120 or 180 subs in my bortle6

[alacant]

1 hour ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

email

Yes, I suppose I could give it a go. I tried their chat, alas only generic ai.type answers.

I'd try it myself except we've no refractor ATM and anyway, it's cloudy. Will report any findings.

 

 

 

[Elp]

Seems like a stupid idea but if you have the camera on taking live exposure and point a remote control at the camera hold down a button and see if you can see the IR beam on the live feed...

[Stuart1971]

3 hours ago, alacant said:

Hi
From which type of glass is the window directly in front of the sensor made? Does it act as a uv-ir cut filter?
My boss says I must fit this arrangement to any 605. Must I? To be fair, the bits were supplied -along with lots of other chinese-free-gift type stuff- but I can't find a definitive answer.
Any ideas?

TIA

Just hold the camera at an angle to a good light source and see if you get the coloured reflection, if not then it’s clear glass, simole really..👍🏻

[Stuart1971]

Looks like it’s just AR coated and NOT IR protected…surely it would say if it was….wouldn't it…🤷🏼‍♂️

 

Edited November 14 by Stuart1971

[alacant]

2 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

 

.

 

 

 

Edited November 14 by alacant
Duplicado

[alacant]

Yep. Thanks. I concede to the need for a separate filter.

Thanks everyone.

[Elp]

12 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

Just hold the camera at an angle to a good light source and see if you get the coloured reflection, if not then it’s clear glass, simole really..👍🏻

This is also a good way to tell which way around a filter should go if it's got a reflective coating. Face filter at a daylight window, place hand in between filter and window, the "front" of the filter will shine a reflected light onto your hand, the other side won't.

[TiffsAndAstro]

1 hour ago, alacant said:

Yes, I suppose I could give it a go. I tried their chat, alas only generic ai.type answers.

I'd try it myself except we've no refractor ATM and anyway, it's cloudy. Will report any findings.

 

 

 

To be fair they seem to respond fairly quick with the time difference but may go into your junk folder

[TiffsAndAstro]

On 14/11/2024 at 11:48, TiffsAndAstro said:

I use a UV/ir cut on my 605cc via a filter draw. I replace it with my dual narrowband filter and don't use both together.

I think they all have clear non IR blocking glass as standard but could email 

In Nina I use gain 101 and offset 20 for broadband and dual narrowband for 60 120 or 180 subs in my bortle6

Omg I use offset 5, not 20.

Apologies if anyone copied my 20

[Stuart1971]

I have an Svbony IMX533c camera incoming along with there new SV555 little 54mm Petzval scope, so settings for this camera that people use would be useful to me…👍🏻

 

[TiffsAndAstro]

26 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

I have an Svbony IMX533c camera incoming along with there new SV555 little 54mm Petzval scope, so settings for this camera that people use would be useful to me…👍🏻

 

gain = 100 (or 101 like me and Cuiv, just to be sure ) and offset = 5 works for me. i did the offset "manually" like Cuiv's video guide. took about 5 mins lol. This is in Nina btw. offset is likely to be not =5 in asiair and other control software. 

sv555 looks interesting, but i have no idea why i'd want to stop it down?

Edited November 23 by TiffsAndAstro

[Stuart1971]

7 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

gain = 100 (or 101 like me and Cuiv, just to be sure ) and offset = 5 works for me. i did the offset "manually" like Cuiv's video guide. took about 5 mins lol. This is in Nina btw. offset is likely to be not =5 in asiair and other control software. 

sv555 looks interesting, but i have no idea why i'd want to stop it down?

Cheers pal, yes I won’t be stopping it down either, it’s all being sent for review, for a set time period, so will give it all a go and do some testing with it all.

[TiffsAndAstro]

41 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

Cheers pal, yes I won’t be stopping it down either, it’s all being sent for review, for a set time period, so will give it all a go and do some testing with it all.

of course my offset =5 with my scope. a faster one might need a even lower. but its a decent number for you to try see if you need to adjust

cant wait to see your review.