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Old 27-07-2020, 07:20 AM
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gregbradley
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Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Sydney
Posts: 17,910
Hi Brian,

I got the 183mm Pro. Its a good little camera but the amp glow is a bit annoying as I have only used dedicated astro CCDs before.
So the 533 with no amp glow would be my choice. It has lower read noise, higher 14bit converters and same surface area. The 183 has the nicer rectangular shape but I think you'll find that is a minor advantage as I also image with a 16803 CCD which is square and never find the shape a problem.

I got the 183 because it offered a mono version.

With no amp glow you most likely won't need to do any image callibration at all. Perhaps flats but the small sensor may not vignette anyway.
Amp glow means exactly matching darks. That matching in temperature, duration, gain, offset. So you can get a lot of combinations. Slightly mismatch the darks (you don't use bias frames with these cameras) and the amp glow does not fully clean up.

If all these cameras suffered from amp glow it would hold their future back enormously. But the later models seem to have conquered that.

The 3.76 micron pixels of the 533 sound the same as the very popular ASI2600 and 6200 models and will suit small refractors well.
They will still be workable up to medium focal length scopes. The 2.4 micron pixels of the 183 will start to be a mismatch as you get longer in focal length and require nights of good seeing to work well.

Also 50,000 electron well depth is very nice compared to about 15,000 with the 183. This means you'll be able to retain good star colours on longer exposures compared to the 183.

Read noise is also significantly lower on the 533. Apart from the shape I don't see any advantage of the 183 over the 533. Its one sided.

Having said that I am finding the 183mm Pro a nice camera to work with.

One aspect I have not heard anyone else say but I am finding the very small pixels make my scopes harder to focus than with my CCDs. Quite a bit harder. Small focus changes don't seem to very the image as much as usual and weak seeing can then make it very hard to focus accurately.

3.76 micron pixels of the 533 are also quite small as the smallest CCD pixels are usually around 4.54 microns.

Greg.
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