Astrophotography Cameras: Which are the best? | Part 1: Camera specs
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- Опубліковано 14 лип 2024
- What are the best Astrophotography cameras on the market today? Well, that depends on what you're looking for... In this first part, I'll explain the differences between planetary imaging versus deep-sky astrophotography, and I'll discuss how these differences affect the camera specifications you want to look for when searching for a high-quality dedicated astrophotography camera. In this video, I'll explain how to interpret camera specifications like resolution, imaging scale, framerate per second, thermoelectric coolers, color vs. mono, read noise, analog to digital converters, and full-well capacity. I hope this information will help you to select a good quality astrophotography camera.
Clear skies!
Wido;'s AstroForum.
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0:00 Intro
1:28 Planetary Imaging
2:46 Deep-Sky Astrophotography
4:21 Camera specs intro
4:52 Resolution for deep-sky astrophotography
9:06 Resolution for planetary imaging
11:30 Framerate Per second (FPS)
13:00 ThermoElectricCoolers (TEC)
14:55 Color vs. Mono camera
17:55 Read Noise
19:11 Analog to Digital Converter (ADC)
20:30 Full-well capacity
21:21 Summary - Наука та технологія
Your astro-equipment review videos are TOP NOTCH! I'm planning to purchase my first dedicated astro camera and these videos are indispensable. Thank you so much for all your hard work and great explanations, Wido.
Thank you Greg!
Very helpful Wido for what can be a complicated subject. Your channel and several others helped me settle on a ASI 2600 MC Pro for DSOs and the 178 MC for planetary and lunar. One of these days I’ll also try out my full frame, mirrorless DSLR. For the amount of time I can dedicate to astrophotography, I went with colour cameras. No regrets. They do an amazing job. Dr B from Manitoba, Canada 🇨🇦
Thanks Brian! I use similar cameras, the 178 for moon and planetary and a 2600mm for deep-sky. And I still have an older asi1600 pro. Hope you'll have some clear skies in Canada!
Thank you for effectively reducing the complexity through clear explanation. I''m an engineer, but until I watched this video I had not fully comprehended the interrelationships between the camera specifications. This was a great help to me.
Thanks Bob, glad it was useful!
What a fantastic video.
When someone knows their subject it shows.
Thanks.
Looking forward to your next presentation!
I use a Canon 6D unmod for deep sky. Just started with my first pics. M81/M82 and M101. Now nights are too short. I‘m thinking about color vs mono and zwo2600 vs zwo294 later. But first good picture processing is my goal. Thanks for your interesting videos and inspiration!
Thanks Dirk, that's a good strategy!
Your videos are informative and thorough. I like that a lot! Now I’ve learned a couple of things more thanks to you. Cheers, Wido!
Gracias Enrique!
This was a great video, with excellent examples. Thank you for demystifying this subject. I really learned a lot.
Very clear and precise explanation of the various specs to consider when selecting a camera for astrophotography. A tremendous help to me personally as I start this journey.
Thank you Peter!
Wow! What a thorough and well-presented review - extremely helpful. Thank you!
You're welcome Peter!
Great video Wido!
That was extremely helpful, thanks!
Nice video as always 👍👍
Will be waiting for ur video on best and cheap dslr cameras.
Very good and informative video Wido. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Ray!
Great video! You basically sumarized a big chunk of information into 20 minutes, and very well explained! Thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
Amazing how useful this information is. Thanks!!!!
Really useful info here, thanks heaps. 🙏🏻
Small correction: the number of pixels does determine the resolution but it doesn't determine the FOV. The sensor size determines the FOV.
Great info! Thank you very much :)
yo! good video, learned a lot! thanks
Thanks!
Very good video, thanks.
You're welcome 😊
Thanks for this video.
Thank you; I found your video very helpful and informative. I also appreciate it many of the comments below.
Thanks Pat!
Great video Wido, you are steadily getting better not only at astrophotography but also at conveying precise and cristal clear information in your video (but please ditch this ugly green screen).
I would also point out that a high dynamic range is especially crucial if you leave in light polluted area since the more precise encoding will help you extract the faint signal of the astronomical object from the huge background noise of light pollution. I recently upgraded my 533 MC Pro (14 bits) to a 2600 MC Pro (16 bits). While the differences between the 2 cameras were noticeable when I shot from the dark skies of southern France, they were simply breathtaking when I imaged from my mother in law’s residence, in downtown Douai, in the highly light polluted skies of northern France. And the 533 is already a vert good camera !
Another minor point you should mention is that you should check that the imaging field of view of your telescope can cover the whole sensor size: for instance, the Celestron Edge HD 8 cannot cover the entire field of a full frame sensor, even with a focal reducer.
By the way, in your next video, do not forget to mention the weight of the camera: it can be a signifiant issue if you are using a star tracker.
Thank you Wido. Great vid as always. Looking forward to the follow up so I can work out if I can get away with only selling one kidney 🤣
Haha, yes. Perhaps start with a cheaper planetary camera? Clear skies!
Same here Bob…I’m already one kidney in lol 🤣
Thank you.... it appears that there is a ton of commitment necessary to do deep sky photography effectively. I love the results but the learning is more extensive and the equipment is more expensive than I am willing to commit. I will need to be satisfied taking tracked Milky Way images with interesting foregrounds.
Yes, it does require a lot of energy and time. Lunar and planetary is perhaps an option as they are easier to capture. And widefield astro pictures are great too!
It's very deep knowlege of camera, great video.
I have canon dslr with original ir filter removed and using a clip filter for cls with uv/ir cut
I do interested in qhy533c, please include that in your next video.
Many thanks for this great video. I would like to point out that, if I am not mistaken, the dynamic range is not determined by the a/d convertor. The dynamic range in EV is the difference between the darkest and the brightest that a sensor can discern (black level and the amount of light that causes full saturation of the pixels, above which all will be just white independent of further increase in light intensity, sort of clipping). The a/d convertor will determine how many different steps will be present within the dynamic range of the sensor. Sorry, can not think of a better way of explaining this but I might be wrong anyway.
To the best of my knowledge, it's the combination of ADC and full well capacity. Clear skies 😉!
One thing you skipped over is diffraction. Depending on the f/ratio, the minimal meaningful pixel size is not only limited by seeing, it's also limited by the relationship of focal length and aperture. Diffraction limits the useful pixel size for most telescopes to fairly big values. For example, an f/8 scope can't really use pixels smaller than 5 um, regardless of whether that's below an arcsecond or not.
Great video! Thank you for this. Guess I screwed up when I bought my 8'' dob, with 1200 focal lengh, and thought that I could later upgrade it to do some astrophotography... Back to the drawing board... :)
fantastic video, though I feel we need to have a little talk about how green screens should be used... :P
Green screens are nice if you have a studio :-).
Great video as usual . Lot of informations given. I'm looking for second OSC to fit it with my new Celestron Egde HD 8,but according the formula I can't find any ZWO OSC that can suits :)
Hi Frank, I'm using an asi178 for planetary imaging and an asi1600MM pro with the celestron .7 reducer for deep-sky astrophotography. Works pretty well for me. The imaging scale is .55, but you can apply binning to rescale your pictures to about 1 arcsec p/pixel. Hope this helps :-), clear skies!
@@AstroForumSpace Thank you very much.I´m using 294 MC Pro for my refractor(same as you have ). Hpefully it will be ok.I bought the reducer as well :) I have enough time to figure it out as now we have light almost 24/7 here is Helsinki.
Haha, yes. We only have about 5 hours right now. I'm sure the 294mc will fit, I've seen other people with the same combi. Cheers!
Very cool
I really hated using the cellphone adapter on our telescope.
It's too bad there wasn't a link for top ten best budget telescope cameras.
Hahah, from the thumbnail I was like, wow 5 cameras....pause...thinking...ok, I only have 4... 5 is just excessive ;) .... thinks.... You know, I need a cooled OSC.
Great video, thanks for making this. One thing that confuses me is imaging scale in regards to high magnification moon imaging. I've seen some amazingly detailed images come from gear that by the numbers would be significantly oversampled. For instance, a C8 SCT using a 2x Barlow and camera with a pixel pitch of around 3.5um.
Is the rule of thumb for image scale different for lunar photography?
Yes, it's like planetary imaging. You can go as far as 0.25 or even 0.1 arcseconds per pixel under good seeing conditions.
Your opinion about the Mallincam DS 16c for astrophotography ?
What about the Canon 20Da, 60Da, Ra and Nikon D810a? What about a converted camera at a company that does this work?
Everyone starts with modified a dslr. They are great, but you'll end up with more noise in your pictures as they are uncooled cameras. Dark frames and dithering helps, but if you want the highest quality pictures you'll eventually take the step towards a dedicated, cooled astrocamera.
Hi great videos. Are you still answering comments?
One tiny correction: 16 bit is 2 to the power of 16. 😉
Yep, I noticed it after publication 😉
I am not familiar with astrophotography but to me it seems like vibrations from a cooling fan in the camera could be a problem. Is this a problem? Do they use special high precision fans or vibration dampers?
Hi Lars, good question. I own several cooled cameras, they all came with a 2 Stage thermo electric cooler. None of them have any vibration issues, multi minute exposures show nice round stars.
6:01 Pixel size - in what measure unit? Focal length - in what measure unit? - mm, cm, inch? 206.265 - is it 206265.00 or 206265.00/1000
Astronomy.tools is a good website to calculate your image scale.
@@AstroForumSpace Thank you.
Pentax K1
green screen without the effect, nice video though! greetings from Limburg!
I hate green screens, lol.
Excellent presentation Wido.
I have an unusual application and I hope you might be able to assist me on. Is there another contact method I can use or only here in the comment section?
Thanks,
Will
Hi William, sure, you can use my email; astroforumlive@gmail.com
@@AstroForumSpace Thank you, I just sent you a test email to make sure you received it.
Waar kunnen we de nederlandse versie vinden?
Helaas geen nl videos, maar als je vragen hebt kan dat natuurlijk in het Nederlands! Groetjes
The best? Oly E-M1X 😁
Lol, nah.. No thermoelectric cooling for the sensor and FPS for planetary is a bit slow.
@@AstroForumSpace 120fps. Or 4kVideo with 30fps.
Any camera that isnt ZWO is a good dedicated astro camera, ZWO has horrible customer service and let something be wrong with one of their products...they will deny to honor their warranty until you get fed up an sell the gear. Save yourself the headache an buy QHY, Altar, etc
I'm sorry you feel this way Steve. Most of my ZWO cameras work fine. I had to send one back to China for repairs and that took a while, but it got fixed.
@@AstroForumSpace Just speaking from personal experience with ZWO, I had owned several ZWO camera's before one had an issue and they refused for 3 months to RMA it, Only after selling it for a severely reduced price and posting on their social media several times about this issue did they finally want to acknowledge this issue and do something about it which was too late. So I make sure now I warn people before they buy ZWO just because they are budget friendly. Equipment lottery in astrophotography is not acceptable. Our gear costs way to much to hopefully get the good gear an not lemons "gear with problems" Needless to say I do not own anything ZWO anymore after the horrible customer service I received from them. Now all of my camera's are QHY whose got amazing customer service
My collection of ZWO cooled cameras work flawlessly every night. My Dodge breaks and the dealer just shrugs.
The best one is the one you can afford.