High Resolution widefield image of Horsehead

Comment

Comment by Marc Basti on January 11, 2012 at 2:04pm

Richard, what about astrodon filters as an alternative, I see quite a few people using them. Marc

Comment by Richard Crisp on January 11, 2012 at 7:36am

on the QE thing. that is simply a choice of sensor. At the time I got the KAF39000 it was the only one they made that was so big. Now they have other choices.

Dave Lane told me that he talked to Dave Marcus, owner of Cust Sci, and he said they no longer plan to sell NB filters to amateurs. I guess too many people wasted their time on the phone. It is a big problem for nearly anyone selling to amateurs.

It costs money to answer the phone and some people are really good at wasting your time

Comment by Conor on January 11, 2012 at 4:45am

That's a fair assessment, Richard. I just wished I had the benefit of your wisdom before I bought my camera. Those FLI models are slick, although the QE is a little low on the higher end models (20%?). What brand of NB filters would you recommend alongside the Proline models? Custom Scientific?

I'm just thinking in terms of my next purchase. As always, I appreciate your honest opinion, blunt or otherwise. Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions and let me know how that experiment pans out!

Comment by Richard Crisp on January 9, 2012 at 5:36pm

that's what I don't like about sbig and qsi products largely.

Comment by Richard Crisp on January 9, 2012 at 5:35pm

I personally don't like handling filters: I don't like opening filter wheels.

I can't understand why certain vendors make 5 slot filter wheels? And then make it worse by integrating a low filter count wheel directly into the camera. It makes no sense.... How do you do LRGB and S2/Ha/O3 all in one load of filters? How many times do you think you can handle the filters that have exposed coatings and not scratch them?

what's the matter with these people that lay out the specs for these cameras? Are they that ignorant of the usage-habits of their customers? or do they care?

Comment by Richard Crisp on January 9, 2012 at 5:32pm

attempting to resolve RBI by offering an LED flood and -35C cooling is simply screaming out that the cooling system is completely not up to the job and needs a serious redesign: ground up. Looking at the ability of certain designs to shed heat: fans blowing directly to the bottom of a heatsink, thereby stagnating the airflow is akin to placing a sheet of steel behind the radiator of your car and wondering why it overheats,,,,

Comment by Richard Crisp on January 9, 2012 at 5:30pm

Having an integrated filter wheel and pickoff guider may be convenient if it can get the job done that you seek a solution, but each of those functions can be better served by having separate elements that are designed to mate together.

Having an integrated guide chip may be nice for a mass market SCT, but it certainly is useless for narrowband imaging because you seldom have an opportunity to simultaneously have an interesting object well-framed and a usable guidestar at the same time in almost any circumstance but multiply-so when imaging behind a narrowbandfilterl especially a really narrow passband one.

Comment by Richard Crisp on January 9, 2012 at 5:26pm

Products usually involve a target spec: what functions does it have and what values are appropriate for various performance parameters: cooling, read noise, readout/download time, different speeds of operation, different gain settings. RBI mitigation etc.
Designing a 23 second 8.3mpix download with 9-11 e- read noise isn't very competitive...
Having five filter holes in a camera completely ignores narrowband color imaging, something of significant value for urban settings imaging nebulae. ignoring RBI in KAF3200, KAF6303, KAF09000, KAF16803 and KAF39000 sensors is simply failing to address a clear image lag problem. Telling people to run warmer and not worry about it is simply overly simplistic and misleading.

Comment by Charles Dunlop on January 9, 2012 at 5:16pm

lol fair enough basti, you get better shots than me!!! lol I like Starlight Express and FLI though, would have rather gone back in time and got those. I've got an ST8XME. It works fine, but likely overpriced for the chip.

Comment by Marc Basti on January 9, 2012 at 5:10pm

Charles, that's cool, but I actually (so far, knock on wood) like my st8300 and most importantly, it was what I could afford. I guess I'm an amateur and own an amateur camera, oh well. Marc

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