Tick Tock, Tick Tock - Page 2

Paul Haese · #21 23-03-2012, 06:34 PM

First batch of 16 darks at 20 minutes completed. The power went up to 86% by the end but all done at -25C. Now on to the next lot of darks.

Peter.M · #22 23-03-2012, 07:32 PM

16 Is a strange number to pick, and I would have thought median combination would benifit from an odd number of samples

Bassnut (Fred) · #23 23-03-2012, 07:59 PM

That's an extremely attractive cam now Paul, nice purchase, what with 8 pos wheel, 1.25 filters, decent cooling, OAG etc. Sheesh, but I'd love to see it with a 6303 chip.

gregbradley · #24 23-03-2012, 10:32 PM

Nice one Paul.

Fred, I believe QSI are working on a future larger chipped camera model.
No data on when it will be released.

Greg.

Peter.M · #25 24-03-2012, 08:39 AM

Obviously them making a larger chip model of this camera It would lose the ability to use 1.25inch filters without vignetting. I cant imagine how big and heavy it would be with an 8 position 2 inch filterwheel in it!

Paul Haese · #26 24-03-2012, 10:09 AM

Peter 16 is a good number I have found. I don't use median on my darks I use sigma reject mean. That gives a really nice dark for subtraction and I guess my results show that.

You're right about the filters if they use a larger sensor. However, I am sure they will come up an elegant solution. This camera is very light and nothing like the weight of an FLI setup and filters.

Fred, I would go with a larger sensor too, but for now this size sensor suits my imaging interests. I always thought the 6303 sensor with it deep wells and size was a good size for 2.7" focusors. The cost though is usually much higher than even the 11000 sensor.

Greg QSI have had plans for the 700 series and published this on their site for as long as I have owned my QSI. Sometime in the future (when that it, no one knows) I guess they will get around to completing the design. I would not hold your breath though.

SkyViking (Rolf) · #27 24-03-2012, 03:52 PM

Looking good Paul, congratulations

I finally got my 6mm spacer in the post the other day and that managed to get rid of the coma using my Baader MPCC. Then I went on to try some precision collimation with CCDInspector, but unfortunately the clouds rolled in again before I could finish that. Next week should have some clear nights however...
It's a great camera, I'm also impressed with how fast it cools down. It's so nice and easy to use, just plug it in, pop it on the scope and away we go

Paul Haese · #28 24-03-2012, 06:44 PM

Well I ran the camera for 26 hours at -25C did darks at 1x1 at 10mins, 2x2 at 10 minutes, 2x2 at 15mins, 1x1 at 15 minutes and 1x1 at 20 minutes. Mainly at 84% power and in a 20 degree room. Never missed a beat. Did a warm up prior to disconnecting.

I now have my dark library set for the next 4 months. I am also very happy with its performance so far. Stay tuned for the first light image.

Paul Haese · #29 26-03-2012, 06:31 PM

First night of imaging completed. Thoughts so far.

Overall a great improvement over the previous features. Although fast down loads is only applicable for reference images. I did not notice any change in speed of download at 1x1 binning.

The extra cooling is very nice though and I can see already how this will help with my imaging. I decided on some tough targets just to get a taste of what the unit can do.

IC2631 which Greg recently did and one I will work on in the coming months to finish. I have included a copy of it with 2x 20 minutes of lum, 2 x 15 for each colour. There is a bit of noise but with another two sessions this could be a really nice image.

The other is one I have not seen here and it will be my first narrow band image. Suffice to say you will have to wait.

Overall very happy with the new camera.