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Read noise is an issue silently waiting here.
Extremely low read noise cameras allows us to capture a very wide dynamic range and to capture faint detail (low photon count data) without corruption
I do wonder if award winning Ha data is more a case of being able to resolve the extremely faint detail (aka very few photons) as opposed to resolving just the bright stuff where we have bucket loads of photons to capture - after all - displaying that which isnt always seen, resolved or captured produces the Ooh Aahs.
So the art (both the practice and the finished result !) becomes more about capturing and processing the low photon count regions rather than the bright regions.
Some of that is equipment related and much is skill related.
The chip specs will help of course, but so will everything else help to resolve such fine faint detail. Noise is our enemy and it comes in many disguises - seeing, camera noise, dynamic range of chip and of data collection technique, image processing, optics, light pollution, gradients, atmospheric effects (transparency, extinction etc), focus, tracking, guiding, PE, vibration . . . - its a big list - in fact its almost everything we work towards.
So equating hours of total exposure time to results doesnt necessarily tell us anything about the data or the noise inherent in the process, but then neither does Qe in isolation - there is lots at play.
The ideal camera of course for pretty pictures ignoring physics and finance is a huge well depth with an appropriately small image scale, negligible read noise (less than -1e), Qe as close to 100% across the full imaging spectum UV to IR
Its currently a bit of a dream for amateurs but who knows how much further sCMOS will come.
sCMOS cameras with such low read noise have become affordable for mere mortals.
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