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There's always a bum piece of equipment out there from any Manufacturer Martin. Perhaps also you were early in the development of the Proline. It matured later than the Apogee and is why I got a U16M instead of Proline originally (apart from price). U16M is a great camera but slow to cool and cooling too weak, downloads slow otherwise a great camera. STX sounds like a great camera but non sealed chamber needing desiccant is a bad weakness compared to both FLI and Apogee. Self guiding would be handy at times plus accessories eventually should be awesome. I wouldn't mind one myself especially now they have matched the price of FLI and Apogee. Proline had some issues early on in its development about 3 or 4 years ago now. They were all solved and from following the FLI group I don't see any reported regular issues. Neither does the U16M,
FLI is behind in accessories and guiding accessories like off axis guiders, AO units or some sort of self guiding solution. So is Apogee.
All of them are very heavy.U16M probably the least so it tends to have less flexure issues and that's a big plus. They all seem to be very reliable.
The bottom line is all 3 are excellent cameras. When you've got a good FLI though its hard to beat the powerful cooling, the fast downloads, an RBI system that works (not that important with 16803), sealed chamber,
low noise, no cover slip option, good shutters and antireflection coatings on CCD windows and masked, dew heaters. The main difference is perhaps convenience in use as they all do the job its just how you get there. Not so with KAF09000 chip though. No RBI annihilator and you're asking for trouble. My main complaint is lack of integration of the various FLI devices. They are all stand alone really and you end up with too many cables or use the Proline hub and perhaps get the occassional hub failures.
Greg.
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