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Old 05-04-2017, 02:30 PM
sharkbite
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ZWO ASI120MC or ZWO ASI120MC-S

Hi Folks...

I'm looking at getting a relatively cheap, dedicated astro camera
and relieve the Canon 7d of its duty.

I have a Meade 8" LX90, and will use it mostly for planetary movies ,and the odd
DSO "long" exposure. (I don't have a wedge, so <30 seconds mostly)

I have read lots of rave reviews about the ZWO ASI120MC type cameras,
and am trying to decide between the USB2 or USB3 variants. My Lappie has a USB3 port so either will work.

My question is:

What is the material difference between the two?
Is data rate down the cable that critical if you are typically doing long exposure?

Any advice or related experience would be most appreciated.

cheers,
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  #2  
Old 05-04-2017, 02:58 PM
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sil (Steve)
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Sorry misread your post before i posted, though DSO was your main use. but I'll leave my response as is.

Data rate for long exposures not so critical. If your laptop is using a HDD instead of SSD that becomes a speed bottleneck. If you want to shoot planets, solar or lunar the data rate may affect things. Often though what apps you have running will cause problems, especially realtime virus scanners trying to scan your video as its being recorded. I havent used my 120MC for deep space objects, mostly capturing a cropped region for planetary and fast frame rates. But full res for solar and lunar hasnt been a problem for me on usb2. I'm tempted to say usb speed will never be a problem for you, my experience is the recording drive and pushing the camera frame rate to its limit.

Still 3 is better than 2 right?

The 120MC cameras can also be used as a guiding camera, I dont have experience here so dont know if usb2 vs usb3 can improve guiding capabilities if you repurpose it later on.

Either way it is a good camera and it seems no difference besides usb between them. I stuck some chip heatsinks on mine when I got it. Made a small temperature drop in firecap, last week I ripped them off and slapped on a peltier, yet to see light with it. But the rear being flat (no buttons or connectors) make it an easy camera to experiment with cooling if you want and the aluminium housing stays cool. I really like this little camera, simple to use and good results without breaking the bank. ZWO seem to have a bunch of options with cooling built in, if you can afford one of those it might be a better option for low noise long exposures.
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Old 05-04-2017, 03:15 PM
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Atmos (Colin)
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From what I've read over on another unnamed forum the USB3 version is more stable than the USB2, this is purely in the drivers. This may have been fixed in more recent times but it was the case about 6 months ago.

It may not be relevant any more but just putting it out there.
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Old 05-04-2017, 03:17 PM
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ChrisV (Chris)
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If you have USB3 on the laptop then that would be good for planetary. And just to confuse things - if you want colour the 224MC is a better camera. And what about mono, the 290MM is great. Both of these are 2M pixels which might be better for the occasional DSO, and both work well with guiding.
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Old 05-04-2017, 04:26 PM
glend (Glen)
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I would actually suggest the ASI224MC as a planetary camera. It seems to be the planetary imagers choice. Its good to start with being colour so you don't have to leap into mono processing, and things like derotation processing.
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Old 06-04-2017, 07:51 AM
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sil (Steve)
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lol, my shopping wishlist (if i ever get out of debt) is currently the 290MC for colour and 290MM for mono ZWO has tons of options, plus there are other vendors with comparable products it seems(same chip and pricepoint). zwo have really done well to come out of nowhere and take center stage with a great range of stable and supported astro imagers that are hard to beat on quality vs price. They can be expensive to buy new locally though. I havent even looked into updated drivers for mine, it just works solidly, I've never felt let down by my "cheap" purchase, ok a little disappointed its not better than Hubble but I bet every astrophotography feels the same no matter how much they spend.

If budget is a concern the 120MC will make you happy until you can upgrade. planetary you are shooting cropped low resolution so megapixels are no important, look for fast frame rate and low noise (high QE) and consider jumping the 120 and stepping up to a slightly better model. last i looked their range was getting confusing.
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Old 21-04-2017, 08:31 AM
sharkbite
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Thanks for your advice folks...

The 224 is on its way from the lovely folk at Bintel!

Will share pictures if they turn out better than what i have now...

cheers!
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