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Proline versus Apogee - electronics - much the same although Proline has 1 second downloads full 1x1 binning which is great, Apogee was much slower but reasonable -about 12 seconds?, argon - same, CCD window - not sure Proline is a high end material (saphire or quartz?)
Cooling - DO9 is slightly better but the time to cool is slow - 30 minutes?
Proline - about 3.5 minutes to 5 max. Weight - similar to DO9, size similar as well. Shutter quality etc - Proline.
The filter wheels are interesting. I liked my FW50 but the open truss construction of the carousel was causing some people problems in dusty areas where the filter wheel moving swirled dust around on filters causing flats to mismatch lights. I didn't experience that so perhaps its only in a dusty areas - Apogee may have closed that carousel wheel. I like the fact its a 7 position filter wheel, would take different thickness filters and was reasonably priced. FLI Filter wheels are very expensive for what they are - good but hard to see the cost in the construction of them.
Neither Apogee nor FLI offer an OAG solution (unless Apogee has brought one out).
Both camera makers seem to be very reliable. I think in the end it boils down to the cooldown time, the faster downloads of the Proline and perhaps slightly less noise and more powerful cooling in the Proline over the U16M model. Pricewise they are similar.
Apogee is the nicer colour! Apogee U16M is slimmer, lighter and takes up less room on an imaging train (not by much though).
I am perfectly happy with my FLI camera's performance but I do wish FLI would implement a QSI type OAG system or a guiding solution similar to SBIG as well as produce an AO unit.
I get the idea with both of these companies the real market is the Xray and machine vision market not astrophotography.
Greg.
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