Should I buy a colour of monochrome camera?

[lineout]

Hi all,

I'm considering buying a new camera (ZWO ASI 1600mm-cooled from Bintel). My question is, what is the difference (apart from the obvious) between the colour and monochrome cameras?

Which is better for planetary or DSO photography

Can I still get colour photos from a monochrome camera?

Thanks in advance

Rene

[glend (Glen)]

Well yes you can get colour photos from a mono camera, narrowband as well, BUT you need colour and/or narrowband filters to produce images that can be layered together to build a composite colour image. For example if you want a colour image of the Lagoon Nebula you would need to shoot red, green, and blue filter images to produce a composite. A One Shot Colour camera, like the ZWO ASI 1600 colour will produce a single composite image because it shoots all three colours simultaneously. The down side of One Shot Colour is the loss of resolution compared to shooting a colour in mono, because the colour camera uses a Bayer Matrix that is effectively a pixel colour filter so that some are red, some are green and some are blue. I always suggest any beginner should start with a dslr colour camera to 'learn tge ropes'. You need to understand image capture techniques, stacking, processing, etc, there is a learning curve.

[iborg (Philip)]

Hi

I read a really good article recently about just this. Of course, I can't find it!

Part of the choice is whether your scope is fast or slow.

I did find this which will walk you through some of the pros and cons of each.

http://www.atik-cameras.com/news/mono-colour/

Philip

[ZeroID (Brent)]

What Glen said, start with the good old Canon DSLR for colour and learning the process and the pitfalls of which there are many. The Canon path and it's associated software support minimises the problems as ou learn. It's well known by most and well supported.
Cheap and good is a 450D or 1100d, better is 1200D and probably it's successor, the 1300D. Low noise, reliable and robust, LiveView ( essential !!) You don't need or use super camera features for astro, basic is good.

Never thought I'd be saying all that, I'm a SONY man from way back for DSLR but the Canon path is the way to go to begin with. And the camera is still good for normal use, that is until you eventually modify it eh Glen ?

[Manav (Yugant)]

Short answer -> For DSO mono is the way to go

[johngwheeler (John)]

The Atik link gives a pretty good summary of the pros and cons. I'm also weighing up the ZWO 1600, but am happy learning the ropes with my DSLR at the moment.

One of the key messages is that colour cameras don't necessarily save you any imaging time. The bayer mask that provides the colours significantly reduces the sensitivity, so you need to take longer/more subs with the colour camera. There is a "myth" that colour cameras have less resolution, but this is only partially true - they have the same number of pixels and the luminance image has the same resolution. The colour mask is in a 2x2 grid, so colour information has a lower resolution, but in practice this does not affect image sharpness.

The mono camera requires you to take separate red, green, blue & usually additional luminance, but you can generally have shorter/fewer colour subs and bin these to get more sensitivity over less time.

The main factors are flexibility and cost. The mono camera, with filters, will allow you to do different things - narrowband, spectroscopy etc. , but you'll need to buy the extras! The colour camera requires less messing about, but limits what you can do.

Most people seem to recommend mono cameras, particularly if you have a light pollution problem, because you can use narrowband filters to get impressive images in your suburban back yard. When I get a CCD, I will be getting mono + motorised filter wheel. But I'm going to master all the "other bits" with my DSLR first :-)

John

[raymo]

For those with a limited budget[decent monos + filters and filter wheel etc:
= lots of dollars] the good news is that if you have the commitment, and
some talent, you can produce images with a DSLR that are surprisingly
close to CCD quality. There are some stunning DSLR images to be found
on the internet.
raymo

[dimithri86 (Dimithri)]

This is a good video for SLR photography.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZoCJBLAYEs

[glend (Glen)]

Originally Posted by raymo

For those with a limited budget[decent monos + filters and filter wheel etc:
= lots of dollars] the good news is that if you have the commitment, and
some talent, you can produce images with a DSLR that are surprisingly
close to CCD quality. There are some stunning DSLR images to be found
on the internet.
raymo

Of course you could debayer a dslr sensor and get a wonderful mono camera at fairly low cost. Try buying a 12.2megapixel (5.2 size pixels) mono camera for the cost of an ebay Canon 450D. Add a Teleskop Express EOS filter drawer and your choice of filters. If your going that far you should probably do the cold finger mod at the same time and be able to run the sensor below 0C.
The only draw back to this path is the willingness to take a chance on your skills.

As to senditivity and resolution, my mono dslr resolution increased substantially over the colour version. People will argue that debayering reduces sensitivity due to a loss of the microlense layer, however that layer is only there to try and catch photons landing between the pixels and funnel them in; this function is easily negated by simply running a slightly longer sub, and i find 5% longer to be plenty. All pixels have dead boundaries, even expensive CCDs, and even with a microlense layer not all photons will get to the pixel well. Obsessing about every last photon is just a waste of time, there are always more coming.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Having bought a dslr then an osc ccd then a mono ccd my recommendation is cut to the chase and get a mono ccd.