Seeing I have switched from DSLR astrophotography to Astronomical CCD astrophotography, I had better post in here for a while
To say this Starlight Xpress SXVR-M25C is a SUPERB camera is a VAST understatement!
Seeing I had basically never truly used a CCD before, I took the opportunity of the clear night of Friday and Saturday to nut out the details of using one. As such, I really did not putmuch effort into focus and amount of exposure - it was more about learning the acquisition, software, FTS handling and colour conversion. As such, I basically only had usually 2 or 3 shots per target (until I tried 2 hrs on NGC 3324, and then made a fundamental mistake and had to discard those entire 2 hrs worth!!!!!!)
Anyway, as I said, this camera FLOORS me. The following photo of M42 - possibly the LAST one I will get till later this year if the weather remains like this in QLD - is a MERE 2 frames, for a total of 10 minutes exposure!!!
There are NO darks subtracted (in fact, SX recommend do NOT subtract darks as it WORSENS the image from these camera - they have almost NIL noise anyway, and is easier removed with a simple median filter). It has had a set of 6 each averaged flats, dark flats and biases removed though. I did a MINOR stretch (in fact, more along the lines of fixing the RGB black shifts), one High Pass sharpen (2.4 pixel), and a MINOR contrast tweak.
I compared this 20 minute stack to my previous 2 hrs on M42 with a Canon 5DMkII - there is no comparison!
Now, if the weather permits, I would love another 2 hrs on it until she sets for autumn and winter. Still cannot believe how sensitive this camera is and the fidelity...
, but first I think I will upgrade my mount!
