|
.This camera was first released by ZWO in 2017 so it had been around for some three years before I bought one in September 2020. In that time it has acquired a very favourable reputation as a capable deep sky astro-camera. But the main attraction for me is its large size four thirds sensor having 4,144 x 2,822 pixels which, when mounted at the prime focus of the SkyWatcher 150 PDS Newtonian telescope, delivers a field of view (fov) measuring 1 deg 28 min x 1 deg. This compares well with the smaller 54 min x 41 min fov given by the GStar-Ex3 and Mallincam focal reducer combination on the same telescope. Also It has larger 4.63 micron pixels than the GStar-Ex3's 2.4 micron pixels. These two aspects of larger fov and larger pixel size should make this camera particularly suitable for EAA / outreach work.
The Baader 2" MPCC (coma corrector) that works so well with the Olympus OMD E-M10 camera works equally well with this one. The ZWO came supplied with spacers that place the camera sensor exactly at the right distance (57mm) behind the rear of the coma corrector resulting in no evident coma all the way to the extreme corners of the camera frame. This is evident in the test image shown to the right. A worthwhile addition is the Baader fine tuning stop ring which clamps around the outside of the spacer rings. It allows the camera to be rotated very easily within the telescope focuser so as orient the camera very precisely N-S / E-W. One disappointment was finding that the camera cannot be linked to ToupSky for camera control and image capture purposes. Thus I have to move out of my well established comfort zone and use some other software instead. I'm currently evaluating SharpCap to see how that goes. The learning curve is fairly steep and so it will probably be some time before I get results of sufficient quality to display. |
|
Initial impressions are that this camera performs very well mechanically. It easily and quickly cools to -35 degrees below ambient temperature allowing a usual setting of -10 degrees centigrade even on warmer nights. It evidences very little noise and allows for quite aggressive gain settings that do not result in grainy images. Sharpcap's pre-processing capture and use of flat frames works very well to produce evenly illuminated images that show no signs of vignetting. The capture and use of dark frames works equally well although the camera produces so few hot pixels and so little amp glow that darks are not really necessary at exposures of 1 minute and under.
It looks like this will be an excellent camera for standard astro imaging but getting to grips with its EAA capabilities is going to take some time yet. The screenshot below shows that some small progress is being made with SharpCap.
It looks like this will be an excellent camera for standard astro imaging but getting to grips with its EAA capabilities is going to take some time yet. The screenshot below shows that some small progress is being made with SharpCap.
