Starlight Xpress 1st Light

[Tandum (Robin)]

I finally got a set of test images out of my new little starlight xpress HX-916 mono camera, although I obviously need more time tuning it up. This is 2x2 binned as 1x1 gives me a very low arcsec/pixel ratio and those images are not pretty at all The camera seems to be pretty sensitive and has loads of potential.

I think I have enough adapters to put the camera behind the VC200L's focal reducer now to get it down to F6 odd, thanks Steve, so just waiting for the clouds to clear for another go. This was shot at 1.8meters F9 and it was pretty windy

This is M83, 4x5minute mono subs, no calibration files, just stacked in DSS, tweaked in PS3 and is not cropped.

[jase (Jason)]

Not bad for a first light Robin. Could do with more data and of course calibration frames to correct the dust donuts and uneven field illumination. I'd lay off the sharpening a little too. 1x1 will give you heavily oversampled data which isn't too difficult to work with - it is worth investigating. Will be good to monitor your progress as you get the rig dialled in.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

It's a good start Robin. It will be interesting to see how it performs with more data. The image scale looks similar to my 10" f5/DSI II setup. The sensor must be quite large in the HX-916.

[Tandum (Robin)]

Cheers Jase, I was mainly interested in getting the camera working with MaxIm, so no cal files and only polar aligned enough for guiding to work. I wasted almost all of the Barambah trip trying to get it working. Running a MaxIm sequence there would shut down the laptop before one exposure was downloaded, and I still dunno why. I've attached a 1x1 M20 image. It's 3x5minutes I think. I need the reducer in the chain

Peter, it has a Sony ICX085 chip in it, 1300x1030 pixels which are 6.7uM square. So about 1.3 mega pixel but cooled