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Old 15-01-2022, 09:21 PM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Kilmore, Australia
Posts: 3,342
Personally, I have had a 294MC Pro, and a 2600MC Pro (Which I still have) and a 2600MM Pro.

If you can stretch to the full kit for the 2600MM I would (2" filter wheel which is designed for the job and the OAG likewise) you remove the tilt plate form the cam, direct fit the filter wheel, screw the OAG to the front of that and the tilt plate on the front of the OAG (Which is available in a number of thread sizes, M42 standard for on the 2600MM/MA plus M48, M54 and M68 versions available)

I would never buy another camera that I could not calibrate flats with a master bias, it makes the capture and processing workflow so much easier. Either of the 2600's I have are vastly easier in calibration than the 294 was. I do generally use a library of master darks but you can get away with a master bias instead, I use the master bias if I have shot an oddball exposure length that I did not create a master dark for. The 294MC (I presume the MM as well) do not produce meaningful bias frames which means for flats you need to use a fixed exposure length which means a flat panel and matching length darks to calibrate the flats. With the 2600 (Both of them) I have Voyager shoot dawn flats each imaging run (Which can vary from about 45 seconds down to 0.2 seconds as the sky brightens up and it cycles through the filters in the case of the MM) and calibrate them with a master bias, job done. Then I calibrate the lights with the master flat and the matching master dark.

I also specifically held off for the 2600 to go mono for the 16 bit conversion as to my line of thinking (As an ex tech) the 16 bit conversion expands the range of the camera significantly and I expected better star colours as at the closest gain to unity (All gain settings on the 2600 are above unity) the 2600 has 51Ke full well compared to the 294 with 16Ke. Subjectively it does and you can go much longer exposure before the brighter stars start to saturate. I just had a look back at some old data and I shot Centaurus A with the same scope with both the ASI294MC and the 2600MM. There are more saturated pixels in a 300 second exposure with the 294 through the bayer matrix than in a 600 second lum with the 2600MM.
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