Which eco-system - ZWO or other?

[dverbossche]

Good evening,

I started my DSO journey buying into the ZWO ecosystem...ASIAIR, guide camera/scope, EAF, camera etc...happy with it all. I am shooting with a Sharpstar 61EDPHII, however I am keen to start moving into the world of larger scopes and eventually mono camera's.

Before rushing into the next set of purchases, I wonder if best to build a second rig using ZWO once again or going the neutral route, allowing me to use open source software and other brands for other components to build up the rig.

Can a non-ZWO route work out to doing things "cheaper" or does it only introduce more hassle and complexity?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

David

[Drac0]

Hi David,

I prefer a mini pc setup - more configurable & the wider range of equipment choice. Most of the gear I run now is ZWO, but when I had my SCT was using a Celestron focuser and I'm considering getting a OSC 294 to pair with my mono but it may be a QHY to be able to use the unlocked Bin 1 mode - and neither of these are ASIAir compatible. And I have no idea how the ASIAir would handle the ASCOM compatible flat field generator I'm planning on adding too.

It really does come down to personal choice & a lot of people are very happy to stick with ZWO gear & the "plug & play" nature of the ASIAir. But it's not for me - the configurability, options & regular updates to the free software I use are more important. And once you get to know the software you're using it isn't a big issue if you need to do it again from scratch.

Cheers,
Mark

[RugbyRene]

ZWO is getting like Apple. Buildng an ecosystem that will eventually lock you in.

A better way to go is use the product that suits your needs the best, whether it be ZWO or others. I only have ZWO cameras. I have Pegasus products, Skywatcher, and Askar as well as a mini-PC to drive it all. I picked whatever was the best for my particular situation.

It won't necessarily introduce added complexity as most products are built to work with either ASCOM or INDI.

If you go with one single manufacturer is when you may run into problems as if you then try to add a device from another manufacturer it may not play well with the ecosystem you've built.

Rene

[Didge]

Hi David,
Welcome to the world of astrophotography - it is indeed a journey, and I hope you find it an enjoyable one.

Like you, I started off using ZWO products. I got good results very quickly and found the ASIAir great and easy to use.

However, there is a tradeoff between ease-of-use on one hand and flexibility on the other. After a year or so, as I became more familiar with the ins and outs of astrophotography, I realised the ASIAir was never going to be able to support the functions I needed.

I found the sequencer very restrictive, ran into problems with connecting to different mounts, found the ethernet connections and WiFI very finicky, the firmware upgrades were very tedious, and tech support was not the best.

After a lot of research, I decided to invest in a dedicated PC to run my setup - which was a big move for me, being a Mac user :)

I also decided to use NINA software to manage my session planning and image capture. If you haven't seen NINA, I highly recommend it - it's very powerful and you can download it for free. Development is very active and tech support is great. It supports native drivers for ZWO cameras, as well as ASCOM - so all your ZWO gear (and almost anything else) will work with it.

If you do plan to get serious about AP, then I recommend NINA as your first next step - you won't be disappointed.

In terms of mono cameras, I recently made the transition to a mono camera (ZWO 2600MM) with filter wheel and (expensive) RGB filters. I'm not certain that was a good move. It is extremely fiddly and consumes three times the imaging time, which can be frustrating if you are time-poor. It also requires a ton of post-processing - which required me to buy a new, faster computer and a huge external drive. If I had my time again, I'd invest in a high-resolution OSC camera instead, and focus on capturing images and developing my post-processing skills.

My advice is to get really good at post-processing. Many amateurs invest a lot on their gear, but fail to get the best out of it because they don't develop their post-processing skills. I suggest you start off with something inexpensive - like Siril (free) or Affinity Photo (great and very reasonably priced) and get really good at it.

Once you master that, then consider a quantum leap to something like PixInsight. I have been absolutely amazed at how much fine detail it's been able to extract out of my old sets of images - but it assumes years of experience at image capture.

Also get good at taking calibration frames (very important - and mostly automated in NINA), integrating your images and managing a lot of image data.

Your Sharpstar is a good telescope - you didn't mention what camera you have but I assume it's an 071MC or 2600MC - which will serve you well for a long time. The Sharpstar is 335mm, so has its limitations in terms of resolution, so is probably not ideal for mono work or narrowband filters.

Also look at how well your camera is matched to your telescope. If your camera has large pixels (~3-4 um), then images captured with your Sharpstar are likely to be under-sampled. This means your stars will be pixelated and 'blocky'. If this is the case, then learn about a process called 'drizzling' - it is amazing at extracting image data from under-sampled images.

So - my advice - get really good at capturing lots of images, and learning how to post-process them, before taking on mono imaging :)

I hope that helps :)

Gary

[furyz]

Personally I own a lot of ZWO gear, both my planetary and DSO camera are ZWO and I own their AM5 mount. I have other accessories as well like their filter drawer and OAG, etc.

But I am purposefully avoiding some of their gear like the ASIAir so that I do not get locked into their ecosystem. I am perfectly happy with sticking to ASCOM control via my laptop. I can see the benefits in terms of ease of use and simplicity, but I can also see the limitations introduced once you are locked in with an ASIAir.

For example, Pegasus Astro have been coming out with some really interesting gear recently. I wouldnt want to put myself in a position where I am locked out of their future products.

Is it more difficult to do astrophotography without the ASIAir? I think it would be, but the great variety of tools that are available right now on PC like SharpCap and NINA have so many great features built in, that the flexibility outweighs the hassle.

I think the industry as a whole (even ZWO) have all happily agreed to supporting ASCOM as their open source platform of choice, and as long as you purchase gear that supports that platform, you cant really go wrong.

[The_bluester]

I have personally tried to keep out of any particular manufacturers ecosystem as a rule. I have ZWO cameras, a ZWO and a Moonlite focus motor, a home built flat panel auth Arduino controller, an iOptron mount and an Orion one plus a Cloudwatcher (Which is not fully integrated yet) with roll off roof automation to follow when I build it.

That has really meant a PC based control system to bring it all together. I am using Voyager, which is not free, and is more complex to set up than the likes of NINA, but it brings a lot of flexibility with it. I am actually using the more expensive "Advanced" version with provides some serious automation in terms of shooting multiple targets and narrowband or broadband filters automatically based on things like target position, moon phase and distance to the target etc.

[RugbyRene]

You should try Kstars. It’s fee and Linux based and is very advanced.

[Nikolas]

It all depends on what makes you feel comfortable and what works for you.
I like the ASIAIR system because it is all done for me and had improved my love for astrophotography by a million percent, I have no issues with ascoms and drivers and laptops, minpc's countless windows updates at the most inappropriate times etc etc etc. I just plug it all in do a pllar align and it all just seems to work. Any issues I may have are user error. Granted it is not perfect ir for anyone and yes it doesnt do a lot of things that pc's can do like run an observatory etc. but for my use in my environment in my time it just works.

[xelasnave]

I don't think I could manage running four scopes at once if not for Asiair plus ( when they are each " issue" free:D;)

When I think of the "good old days"...drift align for PA...what a pain, and sure I have Polemaster ( acquired pre Asiair) but I like having all under one banner..and everything is red..what's not to like?. I don't see a problem.... my big regret is that I bought my Askar only weeks before ZWO came out with their telescopes and as I understand it I could have had my Askar via ZWO and enjoyed red on my scope rather than green ...


I expect there are two reasons why ZWO wants to lock you in...one would come from the boys in marketing perhaps but I expect a more practical consideration would be to have things work...knowing you make all the bits must help...I don't know and don't care and am just happy that ZWO has made the hobby way better for anyone who wants to use their products.

Alex

[Startrek]

Scopes 6”, 8” and 10” Newts
ZWO 2600MC imaging camera , soon to add the 2600MM
ZWO guide cameras 120MM and 290MM
Tracking and Goto EQMOD and Ascom Stellarium
Acquisition APT
Stacking DSS
Post processing Startools

Not locked into one package at all , started this way 6 years ago and will continue this way

Cheers
Martin
(Travelling the UK, currently in York )

[AstroJunk]

In some respects, the only part of the eco system you are locked into is the imaging camera. All the other components, EFW, EAF and guide camera, if you are starting out from scratch would likely be ASI anyway as the are all top shelf products.

Of course, its a very boring ecosystem as you just set up your plan and come back in the morning and everything is done, but it makes data gathering supremely easy. I don't think it is likely to be much good at planetary/solar/lunar though, but that is a limit of raspberry Pi and the speed (or lack thereof) that it can capture data and some of camera settings still need a bit more flexibility on these bright objects.

I have been very impressed just how far the ASIAIR has come, I had an early version and absolutely hated it, but these days it's really quite feature packed and seems to get regular feature updates. Much easier to set up using a PC and Bluestacks than a tablet/phone, for me anyway.

[The_bluester]

I have been there too (Kstars) I eventually landed on Voyager and it does so many things so well that I have a hard time seeing myself changing away from it.

One of the biggest selling points of Voyager for me is robustness. I have been helping someone out with a troublesome cam. It would regularly throw errors and with all other software we tried between us when that happened the night was over unless you were watching. In Voyager I set up an error catching script to park the mount for safety, disconnect the setup, power and USB cycle the camera then reconnect and get back to imaging, emailing me when it happened. We seem to be taming the beast but at one point it could do it half a dozen times in a night.

[ChrisV]

A word of support for NINA. I started with APT but then went with SeqGP as it had the features I needed for deepsky. Got cheesed off with their yearly charging schedule. Had a break for over a year and now restarting with NINA. It's greatly improved and really flexible. Have had no issues with it other than my own stupidity.

I'm using zwo cameras, Nina coupled through phd2 and an onstep modded G11. All my processing in PI. I use zwo drivers for the cameras and ascom for everything else

[Wilsil]

The only ZWO gear I have is the guide camera, everything else in QHY.

[The_bluester]

I will put in that Voyager is also a subscription model (Lifetime license with an annual "support" renewal to continue updates and official support from the developer) but unlike SGP, it was that model when I first bought in to so I could make that choice with my eyes open.