First light ASI2600 (M42)

[kosborn]

It seems like the only time over the last few months there have been cloudless nights, the moon has been full (at least in my part of the world). The ASI2600 that I ordered several months ago has finally arrived, coinciding with no moon and no cloud last night. This is less than 2 hours of M42 taken low in the east with poor seeing and no calibration frames. This was an HDR composition of 20 second and 120 second exposures at f/5.5 with no noise reduction and the only post processing some adjustment to colour saturation and contrast. I'll be taking another couple of hours of integration when I can to better bring out the background dust. I'm thinking I'm going to enjoy this camera!

Kevin

[RugbyRene]

Wow....that's an insane amount of detail for less than 2 hrs and no calibration frames.

[Wilsil]

That looks really good

[strongmanmike]

Yeah a really good quicky for sure :eyepop: you must be busting to take her for a real spin :thumbsup:

M42 = mosquittos :rolleyes: had my first for the season last night out at Wallaroo :mad2:

Mike

[jahnpahwa]

Nice one, Kevin!! Pretty awesome to plug in and go like that :thumbsup::thumbsup:

How do you judge seeing conditions? I'm not sure of how to do it, but I thought last night from Canberra was pretty solid based on guiding and the quick look I had?

[The_bluester]

Nice, I was going to spend some time on M42 with my ASI2600 this weekend. Saturday night is looking promising, first good night without too much moonlight in a month.

[gregbradley]

Congrats Paul. An excellent first image. Is this the ASI6200MC?

Greg.

[kosborn]

Thanks guys. I know what you mean Mike. Lot's of mosquitos setting up at dusk but not so many at midnight as M42 cleared the trees.



Seeing wasn't good for me with M42 as the target because I was aiming low on the horizon looking towards the CBD. My polar alignment was good but my tracking and FWHM were rubbish.



Have you had your ASI2600 long? What do you think of it? So far I'm loving mine.



Greg, this was the ASI2600MC (APS-C) rather than the ASI6200 (full frame).


Attached is the same image but with flats applied and background extraction...

[Ryderscope]

A very fine image Kevin. I can see lots of good work coming from your new camera. Definitely worth the wait. :thumbsup:

[The_bluester]

I have had mine for a couple of months, I am quite happy with it but I am still getting to grips with getting the best out of it. Imaging opportunities have been few and far between this year.


This was the effective first light image for my ASI2600.


https://www.astrobin.com/full/cjcay7/0/

[Startrek]

Kevin
Nice M42
Well done !!
I’ve had my 2600MC since July and so far it’s far exceeded my expectations
Lots of playing around with exposure times and switching between HDR and LRN
Probably the most positive thing I’ve found and that is not having to shoot darks
In most cases adding calibration frames to the stack has made no difference or improvement at all to the final quality of the image. This camera is so efficient and super low noise. For me I found the sweet spot with temperature is -15C
Good luck and enjoy this excellent camera
Martin

[RugbyRene]

So you don't need to shoot darks wit the 2600? Is it that clean?

Rene

[The_bluester]

I shoot them anyway, like any camera it has some amount of hot pixels and darks help to remove them, but the biggest difference I see with mine is a slight decrease in overall image brightness, only visible on a pretty heavily stretched image. A handful of hot pixels still sneaks through but dithering and outlier rejection in Astro Pixel Processor cleaned them up very well. I shoot at -10 as it was very hot here when I first got mine and I could not see enough improvement at -15 to make it worthwhile, the camera should be able to maintain -10 all year round so I left it at that.

The output of the camera is so much cleaner than my old ASI294, you might well get away without darks and just use dithering and outlier rejection to almost the same effect. I reckon darks would still improve the image but it is going to be a much more subtle improvement than older CMOS cameras.

[kosborn]

I added another 60 minutes of 120 sec subs for a total of 2.9 hours. I think this camera is sensitive enough that more integration probably won't add much. This is the latest version (technical details and link to a bigger pic on Astrobin (https://www.astrobin.com/134orj/0/)).

[strongmanmike]

Loookin good Kev! :thumbsup:

Mike

[h0ughy]

I'd be extremely happy with that result

[vlazg]

Impressed with camera and result. :thumbsup:

[dcalleja]

Hi Kevin
What sort of auotguiding setup do you use with this OSC cam? I'm thinking of switching to OSC myself

Dan

[kosborn]

I think the choice of guiding method is more about the OTA than the camera. My refractor has a focal length of 550mm and I just use a 50mm guide scope. My Newtonian has a focal length of 1270mm and because of the increased focal length (and to save weight) I use off axis guiding. I use the same guiding methods when I'm using the ASI1600 (mono) camera. I've been considering using OAG on the refractor as well but focusing the guiding camera is a pain in the bum with OAG!


Kevin

[dcalleja]

Thanks - I'd consider an OAG if I went this way