Mono DSLR Fun

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

G’day everyone,

I thought I’d share some images from my Mono 350D, they are not real pretty to look at but show what the camera is capable of.

All exposures were 30 seconds, about ten minutes worth for each image (micro data )
taken though a 100mm F5 acro, unguided. No darks or flats.

Iso was 1600, and the night was warm so noise is pretty bad, I now have cooling on my camera which will certainly help out, it likes to sit on about 35C below ambient

Am hoping to be able to afford guiding and a Ha filter sometime in the next few months so that is going to be fun.

Cheers
Jo

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Pretty good for the little time involved!

[tilbrook@rbe.ne (Justin Tilbrook)]

Mighty little camera Jo!

Must say I'm impressed, only 30 sec data and you got that much, especially with the horse head.

Cheers,

Justin.

[Rex]

Nice job Jo, can't wait to see what it can produce once you ramp it up.

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

Thanks Kevin, Justin and Rex

I'm putting the mono sensor in my cooled camera right now hopefully try it out tonight.

Jo

[Jo41 (Jo)]

Really cool images! Cant wait to see more!

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

good results. like others can't wait to see what the cooled longer exposures put out. I am guessing that the halo's are because of the Achro scope and not the sensor it'self?

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

I'm amazed the halos are as small as they are considering it's a 102mm F/5 achro. I own one and my colour shots look awful. Nice thing about the mono camera is that Jo can take an H-alpha image as luminance and now all the stars will be pinpricks, then just overlay the colour on top.

Cheers,
Cam

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

Originally Posted by Jo41

Really cool images! Cant wait to see more!

Thanks Jo

Originally Posted by Astroman

good results. like others can't wait to see what the cooled longer exposures put out. I am guessing that the halo's are because of the Achro scope and not the sensor it'self?

Thanks, yes the halos are the CA from the acro.

Originally Posted by LightningNZ

I'm amazed the halos are as small as they are considering it's a 102mm F/5 achro. I own one and my colour shots look awful. Nice thing about the mono camera is that Jo can take an H-alpha image as luminance and now all the stars will be pinpricks, then just overlay the colour on top.

Cheers,
Cam

Thanks mate, I'm looking forward to doing Ha imaging, in fact I'm building a new better 100mm F6 acro at the moment especially for Ha

Unfortunately this morning after installing the mono sensor in my cooled 350D camera I took some test images and they are all black must have damaged it somehow while cleaning it. So these will be the last mono images for a while until I get hold of another 350D sensor to debayer.

Cheers
Jo

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

You've done a great job with that 350D Jo.

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

Originally Posted by rcheshire

You've done a great job with that 350D Jo.

Thanks Rowland

[MGTechDVP (Mariusz)]

Hi Jo,

Great images, I'm particularly surprised and impressed by the horsehead nebula, it looks amazing for 10 min of 30 sec subs...

Looks like monoing the 350D really increased the sensitivity quite substantially... can't wait to mod my 300D.

Mariusz

[alistairsam]

hi

the results look really good Jo.

the larger pixels of the 350 and removal of the bayer cfa makes it a lot more sensitive.
noise is the real killer but if you get it cooled then they perform really well.
I've done a lot of testing with removing the cfa in the SG forum and the conclusion after several dead sensors from different cameras is that the 450d is the perfect camera as a mono.

its low noise, mid size pixels and14bit with usb support make it very easy to mod and use. the glass comes off quite easily and this is the biggest challenge.
Watch out for the blue areas on the sensor.

so if anyone's looking to mod, 450d is the way to go.
I have a mono 350d that I'll be putting up for sale soon.

look forward to some cooled images Jo.

cheers
Alistair

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

Thanks Mariusz and Alistair,

Thanks for the info on the camera, I'm thinking about building a fast 8 inch wide field scope and I reckon one of them would be great with it.

Cheers
Jo