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Not quite on the thread topic but for your fast Newtonian you ideally would have a small pixelled camera chip and of course low noise. The KAF8300 or any of the new KAI 5.5 - 6.8 micron pixelled chips would be good.
They go from .4mp to 50mp! Some are only offered as one shot colour. The KAI16000 mono is the same size as the 11002 chip but 16mp instead of 10.7 and smaller pixels for more resolution and similar QE ( a bit lower). The 11002 is the proven performer but is 9 microns.
I think there are several points to consider when chosing a chip:
1. Focal length of the scope and local seeing (smaller pixels (5-4 microns to 6.8 microns, work better on short focal lengths, bigger pixels (9 microns) are a good all round performer and are usually used in the larger chips (11002, 16803). 1 pixel/arc second is a rule of thumb for matching chip and
optics. There is a free Wodaski CCD calculator that is very helpful in choosing between different chip/scope combos. Its at NewAstro Press website.
2. Field of view you want to image at. A small chip will give a small FOV and a magnified image compared to a larger chip on the same scope. Generally speaking, wider FOV large chips are better as you can always crop them to produce the same magnified image if the pixels are the same size in the 2 cameras. For example you could crop a 16803 chip image in half to get the same FOV as in an image from a 11002 chip.
3. QE (sensitivity) of the chip. Higher QE camera chips are better than lower QE. Also well depth comes into it but in a lesser way - deeper wells are better than shorter wells as deep wells allow a broader dynamic range for the same noise level and prevent overexposing stars too easily.
4. Artifacts. Some chips have bad performance charateristics like too noisy, too low QE, QE performance weak in the Ha band, microlens artifacts (like 3200ME), reflections from the chip cover slip (some makers will install a chip without the cover slip - FLI and Apogee, you gain 2% QE, lose some minor reflections in some instances around stars). Another artifact is RBI - residual bulk image or ghosting. All KAF sensors do it, KAI Sensors do not.
Some KAF sensors do it more than others - KAF3200ME, KAF09000 chips.
In my experience and testing of my KAF16803 RBI seems to be virtually undetectable (a dark taken right after an image of a glob shows no unsual ghost images of stars except once). FLI and Apogee have built in RBI control which is controlled in Maxim. I don't think any of the others have that feature.
5. One shot colour versus mono. Mono is better performing but requires a filter wheel and filters which adds often another $1500 to $3500 more depending on the size of the chip, the size of the filter wheel and filters.
One shot colour is good for people with uncertain weather so every shot counts. Mono requires 4 filtered images to make one LRGB colour image.
It requires clearer stable weather to do that. One shot colour is usually a lot less sensitive than mono (typically QE for mono is 50-65% but for one shot colour often around 25%).
But there is a new type of one shot colour KAI sensors from Kodak that are LRGB instead of RGGB (Bayer matrix of coloured microlenses put on top of the mono chip to create one shot colour). These sensors are both small pixelled (good for your scope) and higher QE - more aorund 43% QE).
These are available in FLI, Apogee. Other makers may put one in if you asked for one.
For example the KAI8050 colour would be a competitor for the KAF8300 (same size but the KAI has both mono and one shot colour).
There is a 10100 that could be a nice chip for your setup.
6. Accessories and design.
The smallest, cheapest and best performing small pixelled camera chip is the KAF8300.
The main makers of 8300 chipped cameras are FLI, Apogee, QSI, SBIG,Moravian, QHY, Atik, Starlight Express.
The main features of a camera that should be considered once you know what chip you want are:
Noise levels (they are not all the same by a long way. Apogee and FLI have very low noise, clean electronics). I don't know about the others.
QSI makes a camera with built in filter wheel and offaxis guider that takes 25mm filters (the cheapest) for the KAF8300 chip (a very popular choice).
They now make a series 600 which has better cooling and faster downloads.
As far as I can tell the quality of fit and finish, electronics, fast downloads, RBI control, choice of chips, accessories and price seems to go in this very rough evaluation:
1. SBIG and QSI probably are slightly the cheapest.
2. FLI and Apogee are more the competitors for each other and are fairly close but I give the edge to FLI due to fast cooldown time, better cooling (unless you buy the Alta extra cooling DO9 body which costs more), sealed chambers (no frosting or desiccant plugs) with inert gas in them, clean electronics, fast download times (FLI is fastest, QSI series 600 may be similar), lowest read noise (FLI lowest, Apogee would be close), high quality electronics and CCD chamber windows, they offer no cover slip on CCDs (I don't know the others do), they guarantee their CCD chambers and guarantee squareness of the chips (very important with the larger chips) they have evolved to be a stable platform with no known issues.
QSI is a popular choice as the combo of built in filter wheel, offaxis guider is very appealling.
SBIG offer AO units which work on some cameras although the main advantage of the SBIB camera is self guiding and that is not available in the ST8300 camera. Also body and fittings quality of the ST8300 body is much lower than FLI and Apogee and probably QSI. Power fittings for example are cheap and break easily. ST402 is a great autoguiding camera though.
So to summarise if I were buying a camera for a 10 inch F3.8 Newt I would get either (depending on budget of course but assuming that is not too huge an issue given the PMX mount):
FLI or Apogee of QSI 8300 camera. If I got the QSI I'd go the bit extra and get the series 600 with the built in filter wheel and offaxis guider. I would get Astrodon Gen 11 filters not anything else.
Or an 11002 chipped camera (a bit dated now perhaps?? but still a good performer).
Or one of the new true sense one shot colour like the KAI 10100 or is it 10500?
Moravian is fairly new and in my experience watching camera makers develop their products it seems they take a few generations of cameras to hit a highly engineered and thoroughly developed camera. They rarely get it
right straight away. Bugs like pattern noise, reflections, CCD chamber window reflections, cover slip reflections, slow cooling, inadaquate cooling,
poor fittings, bugged software drivers that are incompatible with latest Windows version,filter wheels that are not 100% repeatable, too heavy putting stress on focusers, filter wheels only accept 3mm thick, FLI and Apogee can handle any thickness (Astronomik filters are only about 1mm thick).
I think this covers the main considerations. There are others. If you want to primarily do narrowband you go for the highest QE possible like 3200ME (89% QE) or 6303E (65% in Ha) or 16803 (60% QE and over 50% at Ha).
Choosing a CCD is a lot more complex and there a lot of considerations to take into account than there at first appears to be.
Greg.
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