Quote:
Originally Posted by Oscar in Bin
Thanks for that guidance Greg. Don't want to get in to changing focus tubes at this stage so the 8300 it is. Now just a matter of choosing between SBIG and FLI.
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FLI MIcroline is a very good camera. The main thing about it really is the powerful cooling.
The SBIG STF seems on paper to have narrowed the gap between FLI and SBIG cameras.
The main plus is the built in off axis guider. The SBIG has firmware permanently loaded in the camera, lower noise, faster downloads so I'd say it mostly now boils down to the guiding.
The 8300 chip does not need as heavy cooling as perhaps some other chips do. -25C should be fine. My Microline does -35C routinely and -40C in cooler times.
FLI filter wheels may be more expensive. Build quality of the Microline is very high. There is also a no cover slip option which raises QE by 1 or 2% and is supposed to reduce very minor halos on bright stars. I haven't really noticed that as an issue with others' cameras though. It has a nice antireflection coating on the CCD window. You may want to check out what the SBIG has. The QSI583WSG model was weak in this regard and it can cause issues with very fast optics.
Greg.