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Old 09-06-2020, 08:44 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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New ZWOASI2600MC Camera

I’m nearly ready to take the plunge into a cooled CMOS OSC Camera after imaging with a Canon 600D for nearly 4 years ( the old 600D is still a great camera and has produced some great images if I say so myself )
The reviews on the ZWOASI2600MC have been somewhat limited but very encouraging since late last year.
I’m certainly looking forward to imaging in the warmer months ( September to April ) with a cooled camera where the DSLR cops a hammering with high temperatures and thermal noise which definitely limits you choice of objects in regards to exposure lengths and SNR

As I’ll be using the new cooled camera in Sydney ( Bortle 8 ) as well as at my weekender ( Bortle 3 ) I’m considering buying a Dual band filter for Sydney Bortle 8 LP , something like a 2” ZWO Duo band filter for Ha and OIII which are suitable for OSC entry level narrowband

If anyone has any further advice on cooled OSC Cameras or have read any reviews on the ZWOASI2600MC camera I welcome their comments before I make a final decision in a week or so

Thanks in advance
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Old 09-06-2020, 09:17 PM
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I have been following this camera with interest.
The only camera that may be as good or perhaps better is the upcoming ASI2400MC. That is a BSI, 24mp, full frame sensor due to be shipped at the end of June. But its US$3695. Not far off the ASI6200 61mp fullframe in both colour and mono. The ASI2400mc has nearly 6 micron pixels so it would suit most scopes up to 3 metres focal length (I use 6 micron pixeled camera on a CDK17 and it works really well).

APSc suits some setups. You don't need a 3 inch focuser but can use a 2.7 or 2.5 inch focuser. Full frame cameras require a 44mm corrected circle form the scope something many can't provide except the more expensive scopes. APSc requires a much smaller corrected circle and a lot more scopes can handle that for a more reasonable cost.
The approx. 3.76 micron pixels suit many shorter focal length scopes with average seeing. Longer focal length scopes may struggle or give up a bit of sensitivity with the smaller pixels but you can bin the camera to compensate.

If you do a search on astrobin.com under ASI2600mc you'll see some pretty impressive images.

There is also a review of the camera, I think it was from a thread on Cloudy Nights. Its very enthusiastic about the ASI2600mc.

I think if you don't want to go mono and filters etc then the ASI2600mc is probably the best OSC camera out there at the moment.

Greg.
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Old 09-06-2020, 09:19 PM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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I have not found much by way of reviews though I have been looking.

There are some good looking images turning up on Astrobin from them. While I would love to jump to a full frame mono, an APS-C cam is likely to get the nod for me for budget reasons and the ASI2600 has been the most tempting looking APS-C OSC cam for me for a while, the 071 was a bit tempting though it has some features I am not keen on and the sensor frosting issue is fairly well known, but I don't know how common that really is. I even had a frosting issue with my ASI294 at one point and it took a couple of drying cycles of the dessicant to resolve it. I have not got any specific tips related to them as such, but for any cooled cam I would say to try to pick a sensor temp that you can maintain all year around without going over about 85% duty on the cooler, to leave a little headroom.
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Old 10-06-2020, 09:58 AM
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The main problem with the ASI2600mc and the ASI6200 is that noone has one for sale!!

They are both very popular and get snapped up as soon as the few units that are made hit the stores.

Greg.
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Old 10-06-2020, 10:00 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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Yeah, I am trying to steel myself to pay for a camera that I won't see for a couple of months. The only benefit if I did is that I am in the middle of trying to do what I am calling my MOAM (Mother of all Mosaics) and not having the camera before it is finished would stop me from being tempted to change cameras in the middle of it.

Images like this make it easier to look at the 2600. There are a couple of really nice images from the same user on Astrobin using a 2600 and Espirit 150

https://www.astrobin.com/full/6e6i8q/E/
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Old 10-06-2020, 10:39 AM
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I have this camera, it only took around 10 days from ordering to delivery.
I ordered off the zwo website on backorder, then a few days later it’s on the way!
I bought it as I wanted to upgrade from the dslr and this seemed a good option. I don’t have any experience of other cameras to compare it with.
So far I have only used it once other than a few practice runs on nothing in particular. My problem currently is the dreaded weather down in the Huon valley.
I’m in the middle of the bit of tassie that always seems to have the cloud on the “windy.com” map.
I got a few hours a couple of nights ago, night after full moon. I managed 60 180s subs on m83 before the fog came in.
If someone would like to share how you resize images for the 200kb limit I will put it up tonight when I get home. (At work just now)
In photoshop when I resize an image and go to post it, I click on the preview and the detail has gone, I have never really had anything that I felt worth showing to Persue it further.
The cooling works great, when I did the dark library it was in the house with the house heater on at 20c, it was using 70% power to hold at -10.
Jack
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Old 10-06-2020, 10:55 AM
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In Photoshop (At least the version I am using) go to the "File" menu and then Export, and select "Save for web (Legacy)" and it will pull up another window where you can select jpg, and a quality level and change the image dimensions to something smaller, it previews the expected file size so you can fiddle around until you get to the 200KB mark. I have found that much better for trying to squeeze something that looks OK at a reasonable size in to the 200KB limit than trying to resize it manually.
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Old 10-06-2020, 11:06 AM
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Thanks Paul, that is different from what I was trying so I’ll do that tonight.
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Old 10-06-2020, 11:16 AM
Startrek (Martin)
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Thanks All for the feedback

Jack star
Looks like I’m following in your footsteps ( DSLR to cooled OSC )
I’ll be using APT as my frame focus and capture. I downloaded a trial version of APT a few months ago and played around with it with an old ASI120MM Camera and my desktop. Then I wrote a basic set up and procedure and posted it on the APT forum for comment. You guessed it, Ivo replied back straight away and said it was spot on. At least when my new camera arrives I won’t be fiddling around to much with APT and learning how to use it from scratch.Ive been using BYEOS classic version with my Canon 600D for 3 years and absolutely loved this software program
Hopefully APT will be similar
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Old 10-06-2020, 11:34 AM
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I progressed through BYE, to APT, to SGP (As at least at that time, focusing my SCT with APT was an issue) and now to Voyager.

BYE to APT was not really much of a learning curve, there are a fair few more settings to do but none of it was all that hard. It has taken until Voyager to find another program with as effective a way to frame images as APT has.
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Old 12-06-2020, 12:58 PM
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I just took the plunge and ordered a 2600 this morning. With any luck I will have it in early July. Thankfully my imaging PC and processing PC will be up to the task with the bigger files. The imaging one was overkill to start with as I wanted snappy plate solving, and the processing box is brand new and the most grunty PC I have ever had by a big margin.

Give it a year and I will probably stick a filter wheel in front of it so that I can add a HA filter to the train. My only issue there is that apparently the 2600 has an IR cut window on the sensor chamber which makes the one I have in my image train now redundant. I might need a plain glass filter the same thickness as any NB filter I put in to keep it all parfocal.

With any luck in a year or two they will have a good CMOS mono APS-C camera on the market. I decided to go with APS-C not stretch the budget for full frame as first, full frame is horribly expensive, and second I got to learn from someone else's recent experience of dialling in a larger format sensor where microns of tilt measured in single digits are causing him grief even now.
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Old 12-06-2020, 07:53 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The_bluester View Post
I just took the plunge and ordered a 2600 this morning. With any luck I will have it in early July. Thankfully my imaging PC and processing PC will be up to the task with the bigger files. The imaging one was overkill to start with as I wanted snappy plate solving, and the processing box is brand new and the most grunty PC I have ever had by a big margin.

Give it a year and I will probably stick a filter wheel in front of it so that I can add a HA filter to the train. My only issue there is that apparently the 2600 has an IR cut window on the sensor chamber which makes the one I have in my image train now redundant. I might need a plain glass filter the same thickness as any NB filter I put in to keep it all parfocal.

With any luck in a year or two they will have a good CMOS mono APS-C camera on the market. I decided to go with APS-C not stretch the budget for full frame as first, full frame is horribly expensive, and second I got to learn from someone else's recent experience of dialling in a larger format sensor where microns of tilt measured in single digits are causing him grief even now.
Good call Paul.

The best images I have seen from the more expensive ZWO cameras are mostly the 2600. Its just a matter of enough exposure.

I am not 100% convinced the 6200 is as good as some people claim. What I am seeing is rather poor star colour and star profiles on many images and in general a lack of images despite it being out for some time. File sizes are huge at 122mb for a 1x1 image. I am thinking my FLI ML16200 is probably the better camera than the ASI6200.

On the other hand star colours from images from the ASI2600 have been very good. I also saw some excellent narrowband images from the 2600 too which was surprising.

I might be more interested in a 2600 myself later as a one shot colour could be refreshing after a decade and a half of mono imaging.

Greg.
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Old 12-06-2020, 08:48 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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Maybe a good luck charm Paul , I ordered my ZWOASI2600MC today as well
Haven’t got a confirmed delivery date as yet , going to check up on a confirmed delivery date on Monday
Can’t wait as this will be a transition from DSLR to a dedicated Astro camera and cooled after nearly 4 years on the Canon 600D
I’m still going to use the DSLR for some limited DSO work and Planetary work as it’s Ben a real workhorse
Good luck with your purchase !!
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Old 12-06-2020, 08:52 PM
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To be honest, the 2600 and 6200 alike I have seen much the same sort of things, a couple of images that have wowed me, a reasonable number of OK ones and a fair number that I myself would not publish. But I have found more wow images out of the 2600 so far than the 6200. Given they would cost around a third as much to set up there are probably more 2600s in the wild.
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Old 12-06-2020, 10:04 PM
Star Catcher (Ted Dobosz)
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Just saw this thread. I have not had much opportunity to use my recently acquired 2600MC. I have done one first light from my Bortle 7 sky in Sydney. I must say it is a fun camera to use and look forward to using it from a darker site.

The attached image was made with my 400mm Canon L lens and Optolong L-Pro filter. It consists of 8 x 5 minutes exposures. I would have liked more exposure to smooth things out, but high level cloud cut things short.

This was a Live Stack and aligned image that was also calibrated (darks and flats) on the fly in SharpCap. I then took the 16 bit stacked file produced by Sharpcap (113mb) and processed it in PS.

Larger version here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/740759...posted-public/

Ted
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Click for full-size image (1st Light 2600.jpg)
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Old 13-06-2020, 09:33 AM
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Pretty nice result for Bortle 7 and only a handful of subs! What gain settings are you using there?
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Old 13-06-2020, 09:48 AM
Star Catcher (Ted Dobosz)
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Pretty nice result for Bortle 7 and only a handful of subs! What gain settings are you using there?
Thanks. I used unity gain which on this camera is 100.
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Old 13-06-2020, 10:01 AM
Startrek (Martin)
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That’s a really good image for limited data
Sorry to ask questions but what was your setting on cooling being in Sydney on a average winters night ?
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Old 13-06-2020, 10:48 AM
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I though 0 was unity gain on these?

Not really unity either, unless they have changed the firmware all gains on this camera are above unity as far as I know. The lowest gain was about 0.8e/ADC and 100 equals about 0.25e/ADC. I was looking at starting with the lowest gain to preserve the full well capacity, the read noise at that gain is around double what my ASI294 is at unity gain, which is still around half that of most CCD cameras.

More interesting experimentation to come for me. I have the advantage of skies that fall somewhere between Bortle 3 and 4.
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Old 13-06-2020, 01:57 PM
Star Catcher (Ted Dobosz)
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I though 0 was unity gain on these?

Not really unity either, unless they have changed the firmware all gains on this camera are above unity as far as I know. The lowest gain was about 0.8e/ADC and 100 equals about 0.25e/ADC. I was looking at starting with the lowest gain to preserve the full well capacity, the read noise at that gain is around double what my ASI294 is at unity gain, which is still around half that of most CCD cameras.

More interesting experimentation to come for me. I have the advantage of skies that fall somewhere between Bortle 3 and 4.
Well I do not profess to be clear on this matter. I just took it to be the same as the unity gain on my 294MC graph where it shows 117 at the SHG point and so assumed that 100 point on the ASI2600 graph to be unity gain. I guess it really depends on whether you want or need the full dynamic range for your image. Also whether you are running with many short or longish exposures etc etc. In darker skies and looking to record faint nebulosty or subtle dust details above background you would run with 0 gain and go from there.
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