Help Needed choosing CCD

stargate101 (James Karn) · #1 29-12-2009, 10:35 PM

Hi Guys and Girls of course

I've been imaging for a few years with a DSLR and am now loking to take one giant leap for mankind into the world of CCD imagers.
My budget is 5-6K and i want to be able to take super sharp high res glossy images of the night sky that blow my D40 shots out of the water,
What do you guys recommend?

Hagar (Doug) · #2 30-12-2009, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stargate101

Hi Guys and Girls of course

I've been imaging for a few years with a DSLR and am now loking to take one giant leap for mankind into the world of CCD imagers.
My budget is 5-6K and i want to be able to take super sharp high res glossy images of the night sky that blow my D40 shots out of the water,
What do you guys recommend?

To make any sort of informed advice we will need to know a bit more about the scope you intend to use and the targets you intend to image.
There is an awful lot of cameras on the market at the moment but most have a fairly narrow range of use. Nothing much in the one camera suits everything roll.

More info and we can see what we can do.

stargate101 (James Karn) · #3 30-12-2009, 01:15 PM

Ok no worries, i have a Takahashi 106 on a losmandy g11 Gem.
Autogiude with orion star shoot and also own a 10'' Parks Reflector which i mount on occaision when wanting to frame objects a little more closely.

I generally like taking close up views of galaxies and nebulae, wide wide field i'd probably stick with the D40 and a 250mm lens piggy backed.

Does this help?

Hagar (Doug) · #4 30-12-2009, 02:20 PM

The answer then is pretty simple. If you are going to use the camera with a relatively long focal length say over 600mm F6/F7 or above I would sugest any of the cameras with reasonably large pixels 7.0um or bigger, sony APS sized CCD or any of the larger Kodak CCD's. For the Tak I would sugest smaller pixels say 5 - 6um. The new er camera range using Kodak 8300 CCD would be suitable.

It is dificult to recommend any specific camera due to the wide range and price and the fact that I may appear to be sympathetic to one manufacturer. Quite pathetic but true.

My sugestion is you make a list of the cameras available, list your focal length, what arc sec/pixel rating you work them out to be, look at price, software and your own requirements and see what you come up with.
Apogee web site has some great reading on camera selection under it's CCD University section. http://www.ccd.com/ccdu.html

Good luck with your choise.