JohnH
15-02-2016, 02:39 PM
I have an excess of ccds so this one has to go...it is a good entry level osc device - better than a DSLR for astro work imho as it has cooling inbuilt and, of course, no Ha IR cutoff.
You may not know Opticstar - the camera is built on the same chip as the popular QHY8, you can see the specs here:
http://www.opticstar.com/Run/Astronomy/Astro-Imagers-Opticstar.asp?p=0_10_0_50_250
The camera has a couple of novel(ish) features - colour 2x2 (& 4x4) binning is one - this is done in hardware so increases the sensitivity by a factor of 4 (or 16) but loses you resolution but not the osc ease of use. This basically means you can use either 7.8um or 15.6um pixels to match the fl of your scope(s) better. The other is user adjustable gain - normally this is a set and forget item as increasing gain reduces dynamic range BUT in this case there is a s/n advantage - and so you are free to find your best setting or leave it as default as you wish.
I have had fun using this camera but I now have an SBig ST4000 as well and cannot justify keeping both.
I see second hand QHY8's going for as low as $1200 s/hand so it is up to you...make me a reasonable offer an it is yours...PM me if you are interested....
I have added pictures of the camera and included accessories (2" and 1.25" nosepieces, USB cable, 12V mains power supply etc - and I will put the drivers onto a CD), there is an image of M8 taken with it (half res due to IIS file size limits) and finally a 600sec dark frame stretched to show the amp glow, this is easily removed with calibration.
You may not know Opticstar - the camera is built on the same chip as the popular QHY8, you can see the specs here:
http://www.opticstar.com/Run/Astronomy/Astro-Imagers-Opticstar.asp?p=0_10_0_50_250
The camera has a couple of novel(ish) features - colour 2x2 (& 4x4) binning is one - this is done in hardware so increases the sensitivity by a factor of 4 (or 16) but loses you resolution but not the osc ease of use. This basically means you can use either 7.8um or 15.6um pixels to match the fl of your scope(s) better. The other is user adjustable gain - normally this is a set and forget item as increasing gain reduces dynamic range BUT in this case there is a s/n advantage - and so you are free to find your best setting or leave it as default as you wish.
I have had fun using this camera but I now have an SBig ST4000 as well and cannot justify keeping both.
I see second hand QHY8's going for as low as $1200 s/hand so it is up to you...make me a reasonable offer an it is yours...PM me if you are interested....
I have added pictures of the camera and included accessories (2" and 1.25" nosepieces, USB cable, 12V mains power supply etc - and I will put the drivers onto a CD), there is an image of M8 taken with it (half res due to IIS file size limits) and finally a 600sec dark frame stretched to show the amp glow, this is easily removed with calibration.