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Old 05-04-2016, 11:49 AM
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Shiraz (Ray)
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: ardrossan south australia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rmuhlack View Post
From your previous discussion threads on camera sensitivity calcs, I figure this new camera will have at best 2/3rds of the sensitivity of the ICX694. The removable T2 spacer of this new camera means its minimum backfocus is only 6.5 mm, meaning that it would probably be possible to use camera lenses together with a filter wheel, potentially providing a cooled (high QE?) alternative to a DSLR for very wide field deep sky imaging. Is that where you would see this camera fitting in, or would you be looking to pair it with another scope setup (presumably also short FL) ?
Hi Richard. yes, it would be significantly less sensitive than the 694 (which I will definitely still keep for dim galaxy imaging). However, I have felt the need for a bit finer sampling on brighter targets at about this time of year, when seeing can occasionally get below 2 arcsec. The ZWO would provide finer sampling and, with low read noise, it should be usable with ~ 1 minute subs on my 250f4 scope on bright targets, so I would hope to see even better resolution than 2 arcsec using crude lucky imaging.

Then, as you noted, there is Slawomir's idea of using a large-pixel-count /small-pixel chip with a fast camera lens of about 200mm fl for widefield imaging - in theory, should be directly competitive with an 11002/FSQ combo

It also should be very effective for planetary imaging due to the low read noise and high framerates available with sub-image selection.

I had almost decided on a cooled ZWO178 (which is a much more radical change from the 694), but this new camera could well be a better bet. the main downsides would seem to be the reduced sensitivity re the 694 and the thought of processing more than 10x as much data. Regards Ray
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