[gregbradley]

Starlight Express H26C might be a good one. The SX25 has been a popular one shot CCD for a long time. The 26 seems interesting. The Trius has 3 usb port in the back which is very handy plus tilt tip front adapter plate. Low noise.

There are also a number of cameras using those True Sense faster that have a clear rgb colour matrix and claim to be twice as sensitive. KAI8050 is one. FLI and Apogee have one of those and now I see SBIG offers one in 3 types, mono, Bayer and Sparse Colour which is the LRGB colour filter array over the sensor with higher QE (supposed to be twice as sensitive as straight Bayer).

It would be hard to beat the SX26C though, 55% QE Sony sensor is more sensitive on paper at least than KAI11002! And it would be lower noise. 6.05 micron pixels would be a good match to 250 F4. US$3350 at Optcorp so that's about AUD$5600 landed. A 2nd hand SX25C may be around as they were popular. That would be a lot cheaper.

Greg.