314L+ or 383L+ ?

[Ben Ritchie]

Hi folks. I'm planning on buying a CCD shortly, and would welcome thoughts. Primary goal is widefield narrowband (due to LP), using my Borg 60 (231mm FL @f/3.8), secondary is photometry - mostly V,R but potentially UBVRI - with the AP130 (1040mm FL @ f/8) and potentially a C8 or C9.25 at some point

At 230mm FL the Borg is obviously hugely oversampled for virtually any CCD (6.45 micron pixels give 5.8"/pixel) so i'm never going to get a great match, but not too worried about that. I was thinking the 383L+ would make a good match for it, but now thinking I might be better off with the good old 314L+

The FOV with the 314L+ is still enough to capture most of the North American Nebula, for example, and the lower cost is a bonus (especially as I can stick with 1.25" filters too). But i'm thinking it might be a better choice for photometric work as well, where the FOV of the 383L+ will be wasted - mostly i'll be doing time-series photometry of individual targets (I know ideally that needs a NABG CCD, but provided i'm careful to stay linear a ABG CCD will be ok too).

The 314L is also a well-known CCD for me, i've owned to ICX285s before now and it's a firm favourite. The -8300, on the other hand, is new. So thoughts welcome!

[Merlin66]

I have a MX916 for photometry and the filters, but have been caught up in spectroscope stuff!

As long as you have a Mono chip with a well documented QE curve and good pixel size for sampling.

[Ben Ritchie]

Thanks Merlin, think the ICX285 pixel size is pretty good for the AP130, imagine i'd bin 2x2 on a future SCT. Can measure the response curve. So I think the 314L+ would do pretty well for the photometry requirement.

Still very interested in any thoughts regarding the suitability of the 314L+ for use with the little Borg. I know from experience that the ICX285 is good for H-alpha, but the KAF-8300 is a much bigger chip with somewhat smaller pixels.