Hey all
Thanks to all those people who I spoke to about upgrading to a KAF-8300 based camera. I cycled though wanting the ST-8300 from SBIG, an ML8300 from FLI and an Atik 383L+.... until I decided on the QHY-9. I ordered and paid for it Friday and it was here on my doorstep at 8:00am Monday morning. Thanks Theo!
None of the other camera manufacturers could supply an 8300-based camera in good time, and I've been watching the QHY-9 with interest on several websites and forums and decided that the performance was very much in league with the others.
What really topped it off was the value. Until the end of February, the QHY-9 is being offered (no affiliation or any of that!!) bundled with the 5-position 2" stepper-driven CFW and a set of pretty reasonable (from what I've been able to gather) parfocal LRGB filters. They're not Astronomics, but should be fine for the learning process and beyond. The fifth slot is now taken up with my 7nm Ha filter - not parfocal with the others, but will be used separately anyway.
All in all - I can't wait to try it out... hopefully tonight. Lots to learn!
At the moment, I have it mounted on the Sky-90, with the FS60-C/QHY-5 performing guiding duties. The QHY-5 and QHY-9 both behave together on adjacent USB ports on my netbook. It has plenty of power to run both acquisition and guiding duties simultaneously and without conflict.
I'm also keen to swap these two scopes and attach all my Nikkor lenses as well for ultra-widefield.
It was so hard without a camera for a few weeks.... I feel revived again!
