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I'd say it'd be an exceptional camera. They also have a built in off axis guider option which makes it the same only better than an SBIG camera (self guiding goes through the filters and this is a severe limitation - ie blue filters require longer guide exposures and Ha and O111 and S11 are virtually impossible to guide through with self guiding).
I have the FLI ML8300 (the same chip). There is also an Apogee U8300 using the Alta body (I have an Alta U16M). Both are sensational.
The 8300 chip is a marvel. A very cheap and perfect chip that is highly sensitive and low noise. A modern chip.
Well depth is overrrated. Although you will notice some brighter stars tend to be a bit haloed or wider.
The STL11 is a fabulous camera and a proven performer. But it is not as clean a chip as the 8300. The 11002 can have vertical lines sometimes caused by hot pixels and it is way noisier than the 8300 which is extemely low noise - so much so that darks are almost optional at low temps.
The main difference is FOV. The 11002 chip gives wide FOV compared to the 8300 on the same telescope.
I think you should start your evaluation from the image scale you wish to image at with your existing telescopes and work from there.
Wodaski has a free CCD calc that makes this step easy. It gives sample images with different CCDs/scope setups so you can see in an instant what the different setups would produce as well as ARC/Sec/pixel computations.
That figure then should be matched to your seeing conditions.
.66 arc secs/pixel is a good figure so your camera is sampling the scene accurately and not undersampling. But if your seeing is typically 3 arc seconds then you could go to 1.5/arc sec/pixel (half your typical seeing is often quoted as a guideline).
In my case I got the 8300 chip so I could get more zoomed in higher mag images from the same scopes I use with the 16803 chip camera which gives a wider FOV.
I doubt you would be disappointed with that camera. I have not heard from anyone using one although I have seen images from that brand and they seemed as good as any other manufacturers camera.
The QHY9 is probably not in the same league as electronics are important and from other QHY cameras using the same chips as their competitors seem to produce not as good results as the electronics are not as good.
FLI ML8300 would be the best of them all with superior cooling and all the features FLI have put into it. But it is more expensive and does not have an internal filter wheel.
You want USB2.0, good and fast cooling (50C below ambient at least - my FLI does 65C below ambient and the chip is virtually noisefree at -35C, it gets there in 2 minutes flat, Apogee does 50C below ambient or better but takes 30 minutes to get there), durable shutter, fused silica CCD window, no cover slip on the chip (Apogee do this standardly), fast download times, internal buffer (really was sick of SBIG cameras needing to repowerreboot all the time if there was a problem with the connection - Apogee and FLI cameras are independent of the computer once started - a really good feature), availability, accesories available, reputation, after sales service. Does it come with a case? Apogee and FLI do not, SBIG does.
Greg.
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