Well, it's been a couple of weeks now,and the weather at my place in southern Sydney has decided to turn it on. Good seeing and clear of cloud so far.
It's my new (to me) SBIGs first light, and I'm trying to get my head around the complexities of a proper, cooled CCD astro camera after using a DSLR for a while. I'm using CCDsoft for series aquisition of the ubiquitous M42 at the moment, and trying various length exposures at -5C to see what it captures and how it reacts. I've seen it gobble up the base trap stars and surrounding points of light in under 1/2 sec. The core starts to burn at 2 secs, and at 10 (which is where I am now) the nebulosity is starting to really grow. Geez this thing is sensitive. I'm worried now how I'm going to keep the blooming under conrol. I may upgrade the chip later to the micro-lensed KAF-1602 which I can import from the USA now for around $200. I'll see how the KAF-1600 goes first though.
Yikers - it's a heck of a learning curve! Lots of fun though....
Yes Robin - an ST-8i, the industrial version without the autoguide chip. I have an external autoguide setup anyway, so this isn't a problem. Some say that the "i" was a better performer than the ST-8 because of it. I don't know if that's true or not - but I think that filters won't get in the way of the guide chip with this camera.
Wow... :e
Man are you crazy... a 60 minute sub. I don't believe it. I expect the whole image to be white washed knowing how sensitive th chip is.
Please post it.
Here you go Matty
Surprisingly, apart from the noise (had sensor cooled to -5C because ambient was so warm at 22C) the core is obviously overdone, but the detail is starting to appear. I'll incorporate it into the rest and re-stack today sometime. Remember - this is a one hour (3600sec) single frame. Please excuse the rotation - I didn't really bother wasting time to properly polar align. I literally pointed it with a pocket compass and nuged it a bit to compensate for mag declination. LOL!
Surprisingly, apart from the noise (had sensor cooled to -5C because ambient was so warm at 22C) the core is obviously overdone, but the detail is starting to appear. I'll incorporate it into the rest and re-stack today sometime. Remember - this is a one hour (3600sec) single frame. Please excuse the rotation - I didn't really bother wasting time to properly polar align. I literally pointed it with a pocket compass and nuged it a bit to compensate for mag declination. LOL!
That's looks great Chris. I would've expected the core to be burnt out some more but the fainter details look great. It's going to look great with the other images incorporated.
lol
For such short subs, it really shows how sensitive the chip is. Wish my DSLR was that sensitive. 
