Really nice final image! I tried this technique with some old data of the Orion nebula I shot with an APS-C DSLR and I've definitely improved the final result. However, I'd still say that you only get about 90 % of the detail with this technique than you would with narrowband imaging. For most people, paying $2000+ to get those last few % does not make sense, especially since you'd also need to spend upwards of $4000 on everything else, but for those that really want the best possible images from their scope, it still makes sense to get a mono camera with a filter wheel. I like your approach to astrophotography. I personally started with a 12 year old DSLR with a scratched kit lens on a dirt cheap tripod, everything used. Now I'm using a full-frame DSLR, go-to Sky watcher GTI and a 130PDS Newtonian telescope with a coma corrector. It's a journey, had I started with a 10.000$ rig I would've probably gotten overwhelmed and given up. Whenever people in forums ask about cheaper gear, or ways you can get a better result from the gear you already have, you always get those people that think throwing money at a problem is the only way to fix it. If you're having trouble with the image quality of a Newtonian telescope, buying a $4000 quintuplet refractor is technically going to solve your problem, but is it really the only way to do it? I know you have to play the UA-cam game with that provocative title, of course mono cameras aren't going anywhere, they still have their use cases and the average person starting out in this hobby is not going to be looking at a $6000 setup with a motorized filter wheel to begin with. Regarding the "the colours are fake" argument, I absolutely agree. With a narrowband image you're essentially doing the same thing, you're assigning colours to images taken at specific wavelengths. You can decide to make the image taken with an Ha filter look purple. Astrophotography is largely art, so how you edit your images is entirely subjective. But taking this argument of "if you're doing heavy modifications on your photo, it isn't the same anymore" argument a bit further, you could make the same claim about things such as Noise and BlurXterminator. Especially for BlurXterminator or Astrosharp, you're adding in detail that previously wasn't there, so can you still claim those images are truly yours? From my perspective, as long as you're not literally editing in other people's photos, any editing technique is fair game. Drawing arbitrary lines on what is and isn't acceptable will only stagnate progression. This is a cool technique that I'll add to my arsenal, I'm in no position to buy a mono camera with a filter wheel any time soon, so it'll sure be useful for the foreseeable future.
That's an extensive and well thought out reply. I started shooting professional photography 30 years ago and remember the days I, like so many other persons new to imaging, tried the "throw money at it" approach. Then I got a diploma in photography and even the pros were saying you don't make good images with equipment, you make good images with technique, composition and talent, and instead of constantly buying new stuff I started pushing myself to maximize what I could do with what I already had. Then came along the iPhone movies, further proving it's not the gear, it's what you do with it. In this video, I've barely pushed the possibilities of the uncooled OSC. This technique is very much manual DIY. Watch the next one. Uncooled OSCs can do so much more, as you'll see. I really do think we're near the day that cooling a sensor is pointless. We already have superb amp glow and dead pixel suppression tech in uncooled cameras. Noise suppression gets better all the time and its not hard to suppress thermal noise in post. The cooled camera is on the way out. The mono cam will be around longer but a couple acquaintances recently wrote a paper on how we have hit the technological point where mono cams and color cams are now equal in quality due to other limiting factors. I will get to those things soon.
I started shooting the night sky with film... way back before anything digital was around. Learning cheaper ways and equipment to use was a must. I did transition to DSLR's, then modified ones after that. Almost every guy I knew that did astrophotography back then just stopped doing it. I've just recently got back into it again and purchased a whole new rig.... I already have my own backyard observatory. I'm now shooting with a dedicated cooled astrophotography camera for the first time.... so, I think I've approached the hobby quite gradually .... 😂
I use the ASIair setup. It really makes the Imaging process a breeze. Polar alignment will be incredibly accurate and so easy to set up getting the images. You can even set it all up and go to bed and it will do everything for you
This image disproves your theory. No way is it of a standard that can be held up against a cooled camera. The player one planetary cameras are good but even they make more expensive cooled cameras and for a good reason. Lower noise and higher SNR and contrast,
Camera makers tend to make more expensive baubles for persons who think more expensive baubles make better images. That's a marketing fact. What will make the present image better is increased megapixels in the sensor and smaller pixel size. Residual noise is easily leached out in post. Beyond that, the biggest limitations are seeing, the Dawes Limit and other factors beyond the purview of the camera. Take a look at the next video where we push this further.
@@SKYST0RYthat’s kind of insulting. My first thought on this video was click bait and I am not wrong. Astrobloke is an experienced astrophotographer with stunning images to his credit so I know who I agree with.
@@Astrobloke I worked in professional photography for quite some time. I recall the days when the Kodak people used to tell us to sell their cameras no matter what. Expensive or cheap or at a loss, they didn't care. The money came from developing the film. Then digital overtook film and the old film guard never saw it coming. For those companies that survived in that new world, the business strategy became sell consumers features. That was easy; people new to photography usually think throwing money at the problems will fix them. DSLRs exploded in capacity. Then came iPhone cameras taking amazing images and shooting movies and the old guard DSLR makers never saw it coming. Now DSLR sales are at all time lows. Now we have an older guard of cooled camera and narrowband users convinced that $3500 camera and filter investment is still good. At the time it was. Now . . . not so much. It's just the way technology goes. Buy it today; obsolete tomorrow. But I think you misunderstand. I am not saying uncooled OSCs are outperforming cooled cameras and narrowband setups. I very specifically point that out in the video. But I am saying the margin of performance difference is very narrow now, and getting smaller fast, and that makes the entry cost to AP much lower because far less expensive uncooled astrocameras are now able to give the best of the previous generation of tech a run for its money. And when newer, cheaper, more accessible tech can give older, more complex and expensive tech a run for its money it's not long till the old tech is replaced. I've seen this story play out in imaging technology several times in my life. From here, it is only a short step till the new tech supplants the previous. I'm sorry. I don't mean any offense by it, but it's the way things are going.
I agree that cameras will someday not require cooling, but I do not agree that mono will ever go away, no matter how good OSC gets Mono will still have the same offset of additional performance over them. In terms of your image while great that black area to the top right of the frame is full of structure and signal in my mono camera image, its not just black. The signus wall is one of the brightest objects in the sky.
These are good points, though it is anticipated the next leap will be sensors that do not require a Bayer layer to distinguish light frequencies. There are even techniques now that can derive color out of mono sensors without the use of sensors by evaluating things like luminance qualities. In any case, the lack of structure you indicate is more a result of filter choice. One of these days, I'll update this image with an even more complete picture. Till then, check out the sequel video to this where I modified the processing technique.
Agreed,Shooting The Sun In Mono Is The Only Way To Go,When Doing Serious Astro..I Get To Practice What I Preach In April😂😂Gonna Give It A Whirl With My 120Mini..Cant See Buying A Solar Cam,When I Have A Good Mono…Clear Skies
So . . . light has no color. Color is a value that our brains assign to the frequency of the light waves they perceive. Thus, your red may not be the same as my red. There is no way to tell. But what we do know is if only two of your three color rods in your eyes are functioning, your brain assigns color values differently than a person with three functioning color rods. If none of your color rods are functioning, your brain discards color and assigns only luminance and contrast. If you are an owl, you have four color rods and your brain assigns color differently yet again. All work because color is not a trait of light. Frequency is a trait of light. Color is something our brains assign so we can perceive frequency differences in light. More accurately, color is a trait our brains have evolved to assign to light in order to help us interpret the visual environment in ways that augment our survival. When we create narrowband or color images, we are editing those colors, which works because color is not real. It is a perception assigned by our brains. It is not intrinsic to light itself. When NASA assigns color to JWST images so we can best perceive different gasses and temperatures, this is arbitrary assignment. In the first example, color is arbitrated by biological evolution. In the second example, color is arbitrated artistically. In the third example, color is arbitrated by scientific necessity. To carry this further, I would suggest delving into the psychology of perception and Gestalts. This is my field, but this reply is long enough. I'll leave it to you to research or not.
How many subs were used in that image? How do you go about handling dark frames? Taking darks after every session instead of having a library to pull from us a drawback I see for uncooled cameras. I’d like to see a side by side with the cooled version to see just how much difference active cooling makes. I’d also like to see how the noise looks at warm temperatures shooting 300 second subs.
These are all very good questions. I'd also like to see a side by side with the 585MC sensor, planetary vs cooled. For a true apples to apples test we'd need similar seeing and truly dark skies, somewhere between B1 and B2, like where I live. I suspect there'd be a little less noise but the sensor is extraordinarily clean when it comes to thermal noise. I can't run any really hot tests, though. I live in Canada and summer nights are rarely ever more than about 17C and most nights cooler. For this image, I shot it in June, I think about six hours of astronomical dark at that time. 59 300s subs at 250 gain, 10 offset.
Great video, thanks. The image was fantastic. I have been deliberating over a better OSC or going mono/narrowband. Your video has just helped me decide, I’m going OSC with my new scope. Thanks. 👍
I am glad you found it useful. Astrophotography is changing all the time, and for the better. The camera tech, in particular, has grown by leaps and bounds and a good camera is so affordable now.
Absolutely love this video, especially the portion about "perceived" colors. I get asked about colors in my images all the time. This gives me a few more "bullets" to fire back with. Also like the looks of Affinity Photo and right now its a one time purchase of $69 for a Windows version here in the US. Thanks again!
Affinity Photo is also offering a six month free trial. You just can't beat that. I've been using Affinity Photo forever and consider it indispensable. I used to use PhotoShop but stopped literally on the day they went to their subscription scam and never missed it after switching to Affinity Photo.
I haven't used QHY cameras so I couldn't give an experience-based opinion. But the newest sensors, like the 585MC that is in the Player One Uranus-C is proving to push astro camera tech to new boundaries. It really is a game changer, and I hope we see more progress like it. I think one of these days soon some camera maker is going to announce a sensor that records the frequencies of light without a Bayer Mask and then everything changes. But who knows . . . that's just my speculation. Till then, I think the greatest power of a mono camera is it's ability to capture data faster. The image quality gap between color and mono is narrowing rapidly.
The colours in narrowband are not arbitrary. The hubble pallette for instance, a blue region would represent oxygen within the nebula. In your method, you have assigned a brightness value to blue it would seem so it will be a combination of hydrogen and oxygen which is meaningless. Yes you vould change the rgb channel its assigned to, but it still has meaning in the final image and therefore value scientifically. This method does not. Ironically, if you had just taken the data from the green and blue chanels, and boosted them, it would have given you a better result as they contain the Oiii data.
Data from all the channels was applied, especially since green is where a lot of good luminance data lies. But this method is a manual way of reworking the data. The next video goes much deeper.
What are the ranges of sensor pixel size for the uncooled cameras? If you have a longer focal length scope, e.g. C8 SCT are any of the uncooled cameras are a good match? More choice with short focal length telescope.
I am not sure I understand the question. You can get cameras with sensors of various pixel size both cooled and uncooled but you probably have more choices with smaller pixel size. Technically, everything amateur astronomers and astrophotographers are using is small pixel. ON professional telescopes pixel size is huge in comparison.
Very interesting. I could give a try to this little camera and technique. Thx :). I wonder if it's an heavy cooled camera is even usefull when outdoor temp is -5/-10 or less, most of the time.
I live in Canada. Summer nights here are rarely warmer than 15C, so heat is never a big problem. If it got hotter, you may want a cooled camera. On winter nights, I often don't bother to even turn cooling on, not if it's below 0C. That's with the Player One Ares-M which uses the 533 sensor. The Uranus-C isn't immune to heat, but it appears to affect these modern sensors so much less. If you live in a really hot area, your results may vary.
Not really my claims, though. The results of several very good papers by Jason Dain and Blair MacDonald where they ran outcome analyses an OSC and mono cam of the same make and sensor. I think it was the ZWO ASI2600. Their results were that unless one lives in a region of superb seeing and above most of the atmosphere, there is little to no benefit in the extra resolution of a mono camera as modern technology has become so good that now the atmosphere is the primary resolution limiter.
Hi, I am actually looking at a uncooled OSC planetary cam with a large sensor, over a cooled OSC cam that is priced twice the cost. Would you mind doing a step-by-step Pixinsight & Affinity Photos tutorial on bringing the best out of an uncooled OSC planetary cam like what you just did for this video? Thank you so much! :)
I plan to do so shortly. In this video, I barely pushed the possibilities of the uncooled OSC. Later today I am putting up a new video where you will see a whole other level of potential for the cooled OSC.
yes but no. Locally, an ASI imx533 is $1400. Converted price for their uncooled fan imx533 is bout $1000.. What would I pick, save $400 but lose TEC cooling and have it from a unknown brand that is china based or spend $400 more, have TEC cooling and have it from a known big player in the industry Reality is sony charges an amount for their chip and the only other way to save money is cut costs elsewhere If the camera was $599 AUD.. vs $1400AUD for the ASI.. id spend the $599... but its not. its near the same and so "you get what you pay for / the poor man pays twice" kicks in
It's always a personal choice, but if you're referring to Player One vs ZWO (as the big known brand) be aware that ZWO is notorious for cutting costs on build quality and planned obsolescence. By contrast, Player One builds their cameras as if they were the Rolls-Royce of astrocameras--top notch every part. Great customer service which I know from personal experience. And they were started by ZWO engineers who got tired of the way things were done at ZWO.
@@SKYST0RY I agree with you. I use 3 ASI cameras, the latest one being ASI533MM (with ZWO 8 position filter wheel). But then I watched Cuiv videos and did some reaseach and realized that all of these camera are made in China, and then rebranded, and uses the same Sony's chip. My next camera is now definitely Touptek's ATR3CMOS26000KMA which I am getting a new one is just $1297 Canadian dollars (including shipping charges, and cheaper than my 533MM). This camera is exactly like ZWO ASI 2600MM, and company even has better aftersales services. I am going to order by the end of this month.
With my experience with Chinese companies it’s usually. First Get a lot of orders / profit and when they have their consumer base built they start to cut corners. This is so common in the manufacturing industry where it actually kills millions in China with tofu dreg projects. I know ZWO does it. Hope player one doesn’t fall down the same path
Some companies have remained great in terms of quality, such as DJI. I like to think Player One will also be one. I've by and large avoided ZWO because of the increasing complaints regarding quality control and that they don't respond to customer service requests much anymore.
It's oddly true. It's only perception, and on top of that the colors we perceive are subject to the nuances of the color cones in our eyes and the way our brains process color. Your green, for example, may not be the same as my green.
The final result of this ( and almost all astrophotos lately) has almost nothing to do with camera or telescope...and a lot to do with filters and new processing techniques in processing software. Guys like Bill Blanshen and Russ Croman have revolutionized processing to the point where anyone can crank out an amazing pictures. Cooled...uncooled....doesn't matter.
That's absolutely correct. But the original data capture does matter. We've just reached a point where incredible telescopes and cameras are par for the course.
@@Mr77pro Exactly. II've seen countless images taken with superb gear that suffered poor editing. And superb images taken with sub-par gear that was saved by skill with the equipment and good editing.
Sorry, as good an image as that is it is nowhere near as impressive as some of the images I have seen captured with cooled mono cameras ( not by me I might add ) I do agree with your comments relating to colours though and of course if you are on a tight budget then an OSC is a great investment (with the correct light pollution filters if you don't have access to dark skies) as they do give great results but replacing a cooled mono astronomy camera for detail and versatility any time soon? I don't think so. Many astro photographers seem to use both. Being simpler OSC are great for grab and go set ups.
I think presently uncooled OSC and mono cameras are not quite as good as cooled cameras, but they are getting very close. In this video, I was only using a 9MP camera and manual editing, and the results were good. In the next video, coming out this weekend, I will show even better techniques that push an ordinary uncooled OSC even further with significantly better and more accurate results. The edge cooled cameras have over uncooled is getting very slender. I don't think it's that long till cooling isn't necessary at all.
@@SKYST0RYThanks for your reply I for one will be very happy when a sensor doesn't require cooling but as it is I can't see how a OSC will match the performance of a mono not because of the actual sensor (which is essentially the same) but the effect of the embedded filter matrix used in OSC cameras. I know modern OSC cams give really good images and my next cam will probably be one but it will be used as well as and not as replacement for my mono cams.
@@SKYST0RY Thanks your reply. Although modern OSC cams are excellent I can't see they can match a mono not because of the sensor ( which is effectively the same for both) but the effect of the filter matrix embedded in the OSC variety. Basically for a given sensor size which ever filter is placed in front of a mono sensor will result in every pixel in the sensor array recieving photons at that wavelength. This is not the case when a RGB matrix is placed in front
@@KevinRudd-w8s This is a common misunderstanding, or at least something which is both true and not. The Bayer matrix does filter light by color, but the off color pixels are not black. They are still receiving light and thus data. In AP it is often assumed those green pixels are wasted. They are not. They continue to receive a great deal of data whatever color filter is in front of them. You can see this in two ways. Put a red filter on a telescope or camera and image some trees, buildings, whatever. Split the color channels in an image processor and observe the green channel. You're going to see a lot of data on the green channel regardless of the filter. Or photograph a DSO object lacking green then split and check the green channel. Again, you're going to see a lot of data on the green channel. Try putting a colored filter in front of the OSC sensor and then photographing the DSO object and check your green channel. The green channel of an OSC is still capturing data that will contribute to overall luminance and sharpness. If you use a narrowband filter on an OSC, that is a disadvantage to the OSC, but if you use a dual or triband filter on an OSC, you can now capture all three narrowband channels at once. So then you have to consider if it is more efficient to shoot narrowband on a mono camera one channel at a time, or is it more efficient to shoot dual or triband on an OSC sensor, a situation in which each band uses only part of a sensor but they are used all at once. Then you have to factor if you are working faster shooting calibration frames for each narrowband channel, along with changing filters and focus through the night, or if you are working faster shooting all night with no filter changes, no extra refocusing and only needing one set of calibration frames in the morning. And even then, these are not the biggest limiters (or equalizers). The biggest ones are seeing and the Dawes limit. And then you have to weigh that yet again against the vastly greater cost of a cooled mono cam with filters and filter wheel vs a much more affordable decent uncooled broadband camera. An uncooled broadband camera with a higher megapixel count is going to level the playing field even more. These are yet more advanced topics we'll cover later.
Not sure if its just me but I am not impressed by that image and fail to see how you can say its the end of cooled cameras. A cooled mono camera completely trumps this in every aspect.
Slightly trumps them in every respect . . . provided you have 3 to 5 times the money to spend. And the difference is now so slight it won't be long till there is no edge in using cooled mono cams. Take a look at the next video.
What if our ancestors thousands of years ago on a new moon night looked up under bortal 0 skies and could see cloud like nebula and called that heaven?
Cooled cameras are the only cameras where darks are really useful, though you can build up a dark library in advance. They are far less necessary these days, though. Most persons shooting with sensors like the IMX585 or similar don't bother with darks at all anymore. For years, all I've used are flats and biases for calibration.
Thats why you build dark libraries when you have the time to. You dont need 100% exact temps for calibration frames, 3-5°C difference doesnt matter. Cooled cameras are heavily overpriced. Some peeps on Cloudynights have calculated that any given cooled ZWO cam is, on average, 300-400 dollars more expensive than their uncooled variants. That is in no way justified.
Theres passive cooling, active air cooling and peltier cooling. This camera has air cooling, which is basically nothing compared to peltier cooling, aka TEC. Even with the fan not running, there IS some little amount of cooling going on tho, as the heatsink draws heat away from the camera body faster.
Really nice final image! I tried this technique with some old data of the Orion nebula I shot with an APS-C DSLR and I've definitely improved the final result.
However, I'd still say that you only get about 90 % of the detail with this technique than you would with narrowband imaging. For most people, paying $2000+ to get those last few % does not make sense, especially since you'd also need to spend upwards of $4000 on everything else, but for those that really want the best possible images from their scope, it still makes sense to get a mono camera with a filter wheel.
I like your approach to astrophotography. I personally started with a 12 year old DSLR with a scratched kit lens on a dirt cheap tripod, everything used. Now I'm using a full-frame DSLR, go-to Sky watcher GTI and a 130PDS Newtonian telescope with a coma corrector. It's a journey, had I started with a 10.000$ rig I would've probably gotten overwhelmed and given up.
Whenever people in forums ask about cheaper gear, or ways you can get a better result from the gear you already have, you always get those people that think throwing money at a problem is the only way to fix it. If you're having trouble with the image quality of a Newtonian telescope, buying a $4000 quintuplet refractor is technically going to solve your problem, but is it really the only way to do it?
I know you have to play the UA-cam game with that provocative title, of course mono cameras aren't going anywhere, they still have their use cases and the average person starting out in this hobby is not going to be looking at a $6000 setup with a motorized filter wheel to begin with.
Regarding the "the colours are fake" argument, I absolutely agree. With a narrowband image you're essentially doing the same thing, you're assigning colours to images taken at specific wavelengths. You can decide to make the image taken with an Ha filter look purple. Astrophotography is largely art, so how you edit your images is entirely subjective.
But taking this argument of "if you're doing heavy modifications on your photo, it isn't the same anymore" argument a bit further, you could make the same claim about things such as Noise and BlurXterminator. Especially for BlurXterminator or Astrosharp, you're adding in detail that previously wasn't there, so can you still claim those images are truly yours?
From my perspective, as long as you're not literally editing in other people's photos, any editing technique is fair game. Drawing arbitrary lines on what is and isn't acceptable will only stagnate progression. This is a cool technique that I'll add to my arsenal, I'm in no position to buy a mono camera with a filter wheel any time soon, so it'll sure be useful for the foreseeable future.
That's an extensive and well thought out reply. I started shooting professional photography 30 years ago and remember the days I, like so many other persons new to imaging, tried the "throw money at it" approach. Then I got a diploma in photography and even the pros were saying you don't make good images with equipment, you make good images with technique, composition and talent, and instead of constantly buying new stuff I started pushing myself to maximize what I could do with what I already had. Then came along the iPhone movies, further proving it's not the gear, it's what you do with it. In this video, I've barely pushed the possibilities of the uncooled OSC. This technique is very much manual DIY. Watch the next one. Uncooled OSCs can do so much more, as you'll see. I really do think we're near the day that cooling a sensor is pointless. We already have superb amp glow and dead pixel suppression tech in uncooled cameras. Noise suppression gets better all the time and its not hard to suppress thermal noise in post. The cooled camera is on the way out. The mono cam will be around longer but a couple acquaintances recently wrote a paper on how we have hit the technological point where mono cams and color cams are now equal in quality due to other limiting factors. I will get to those things soon.
I genuinely can not tell if it is a real person talking or not.
I get that a lot. I'll have to check my programming.
@@SKYST0RYlol
Hahaha
Yeah... it's a human.😬
I started shooting the night sky with film... way back before anything digital was around. Learning cheaper ways and equipment to use was a must. I did transition to DSLR's, then modified ones after that. Almost every guy I knew that did astrophotography back then just stopped doing it. I've just recently got back into it again and purchased a whole new rig.... I already have my own backyard observatory. I'm now shooting with a dedicated cooled astrophotography camera for the first time.... so, I think I've approached the hobby quite gradually .... 😂
We had a similar history. I started by strapping my cheap film camera onto my refractor when I was about 10 years old.
I use the ASIair setup. It really makes the Imaging process a breeze. Polar alignment will be incredibly accurate and so easy to set up getting the images. You can even set it all up and go to bed and it will do everything for you
@@luv2flydrones275 I almost purchased one, but it's not compatible with my PlayerOne Poseidon-C Pro camera 😪
This image disproves your theory. No way is it of a standard that can be held up against a cooled camera. The player one planetary cameras are good but even they make more expensive cooled cameras and for a good reason. Lower noise and higher SNR and contrast,
Camera makers tend to make more expensive baubles for persons who think more expensive baubles make better images. That's a marketing fact. What will make the present image better is increased megapixels in the sensor and smaller pixel size. Residual noise is easily leached out in post. Beyond that, the biggest limitations are seeing, the Dawes Limit and other factors beyond the purview of the camera. Take a look at the next video where we push this further.
@@SKYST0RY I disagree and my NASA APOD image would not have been achieved without the level of equipment I own and use. You are misleading people
@@SKYST0RYthat’s kind of insulting. My first thought on this video was click bait and I am not wrong. Astrobloke is an experienced astrophotographer with stunning images to his credit so I know who I agree with.
@@Astrobloke I worked in professional photography for quite some time. I recall the days when the Kodak people used to tell us to sell their cameras no matter what. Expensive or cheap or at a loss, they didn't care. The money came from developing the film. Then digital overtook film and the old film guard never saw it coming. For those companies that survived in that new world, the business strategy became sell consumers features. That was easy; people new to photography usually think throwing money at the problems will fix them. DSLRs exploded in capacity. Then came iPhone cameras taking amazing images and shooting movies and the old guard DSLR makers never saw it coming. Now DSLR sales are at all time lows. Now we have an older guard of cooled camera and narrowband users convinced that $3500 camera and filter investment is still good. At the time it was. Now . . . not so much. It's just the way technology goes. Buy it today; obsolete tomorrow. But I think you misunderstand. I am not saying uncooled OSCs are outperforming cooled cameras and narrowband setups. I very specifically point that out in the video. But I am saying the margin of performance difference is very narrow now, and getting smaller fast, and that makes the entry cost to AP much lower because far less expensive uncooled astrocameras are now able to give the best of the previous generation of tech a run for its money. And when newer, cheaper, more accessible tech can give older, more complex and expensive tech a run for its money it's not long till the old tech is replaced. I've seen this story play out in imaging technology several times in my life. From here, it is only a short step till the new tech supplants the previous. I'm sorry. I don't mean any offense by it, but it's the way things are going.
@@markbayfield6381 I like Astrobloke's images and videos. But I still disagree with him on this matter.
I agree that cameras will someday not require cooling, but I do not agree that mono will ever go away, no matter how good OSC gets Mono will still have the same offset of additional performance over them. In terms of your image while great that black area to the top right of the frame is full of structure and signal in my mono camera image, its not just black. The signus wall is one of the brightest objects in the sky.
These are good points, though it is anticipated the next leap will be sensors that do not require a Bayer layer to distinguish light frequencies. There are even techniques now that can derive color out of mono sensors without the use of sensors by evaluating things like luminance qualities. In any case, the lack of structure you indicate is more a result of filter choice. One of these days, I'll update this image with an even more complete picture. Till then, check out the sequel video to this where I modified the processing technique.
Agreed,Shooting The Sun In Mono Is The Only Way To Go,When Doing Serious Astro..I Get To Practice What I Preach In April😂😂Gonna Give It A Whirl With My 120Mini..Cant See Buying A Solar Cam,When I Have A Good Mono…Clear Skies
Colors are not arbitrary…the way you can use and assign the colors can be.
So . . . light has no color. Color is a value that our brains assign to the frequency of the light waves they perceive. Thus, your red may not be the same as my red. There is no way to tell. But what we do know is if only two of your three color rods in your eyes are functioning, your brain assigns color values differently than a person with three functioning color rods. If none of your color rods are functioning, your brain discards color and assigns only luminance and contrast. If you are an owl, you have four color rods and your brain assigns color differently yet again.
All work because color is not a trait of light. Frequency is a trait of light. Color is something our brains assign so we can perceive frequency differences in light. More accurately, color is a trait our brains have evolved to assign to light in order to help us interpret the visual environment in ways that augment our survival.
When we create narrowband or color images, we are editing those colors, which works because color is not real. It is a perception assigned by our brains. It is not intrinsic to light itself. When NASA assigns color to JWST images so we can best perceive different gasses and temperatures, this is arbitrary assignment.
In the first example, color is arbitrated by biological evolution. In the second example, color is arbitrated artistically. In the third example, color is arbitrated by scientific necessity.
To carry this further, I would suggest delving into the psychology of perception and Gestalts. This is my field, but this reply is long enough. I'll leave it to you to research or not.
How many subs were used in that image? How do you go about handling dark frames? Taking darks after every session instead of having a library to pull from us a drawback I see for uncooled cameras. I’d like to see a side by side with the cooled version to see just how much difference active cooling makes. I’d also like to see how the noise looks at warm temperatures shooting 300 second subs.
These are all very good questions. I'd also like to see a side by side with the 585MC sensor, planetary vs cooled. For a true apples to apples test we'd need similar seeing and truly dark skies, somewhere between B1 and B2, like where I live. I suspect there'd be a little less noise but the sensor is extraordinarily clean when it comes to thermal noise. I can't run any really hot tests, though. I live in Canada and summer nights are rarely ever more than about 17C and most nights cooler. For this image, I shot it in June, I think about six hours of astronomical dark at that time. 59 300s subs at 250 gain, 10 offset.
Great video, thanks. The image was fantastic. I have been deliberating over a better OSC or going mono/narrowband. Your video has just helped me decide, I’m going OSC with my new scope. Thanks. 👍
I am glad you found it useful. Astrophotography is changing all the time, and for the better. The camera tech, in particular, has grown by leaps and bounds and a good camera is so affordable now.
Check out the next video, posted today. In it we apply an even more accurate method for pushing the power of uncooled OSCs. The results are stunning.
Same Experience with Player One Saturn C and ACS
Absolutely love this video, especially the portion about "perceived" colors. I get asked about colors in my images all the time. This gives me a few more "bullets" to fire back with. Also like the looks of Affinity Photo and right now its a one time purchase of $69 for a Windows version here in the US. Thanks again!
Affinity Photo is also offering a six month free trial. You just can't beat that. I've been using Affinity Photo forever and consider it indispensable. I used to use PhotoShop but stopped literally on the day they went to their subscription scam and never missed it after switching to Affinity Photo.
I'm wondering how good the results will be with a higher resolution yet still cheap monochrome planetary camera, such as QHY678M?
I haven't used QHY cameras so I couldn't give an experience-based opinion. But the newest sensors, like the 585MC that is in the Player One Uranus-C is proving to push astro camera tech to new boundaries. It really is a game changer, and I hope we see more progress like it. I think one of these days soon some camera maker is going to announce a sensor that records the frequencies of light without a Bayer Mask and then everything changes. But who knows . . . that's just my speculation. Till then, I think the greatest power of a mono camera is it's ability to capture data faster. The image quality gap between color and mono is narrowing rapidly.
Thank you for the wonderful content. I saw nobody take this approach. ....❤
The colours in narrowband are not arbitrary. The hubble pallette for instance, a blue region would represent oxygen within the nebula. In your method, you have assigned a brightness value to blue it would seem so it will be a combination of hydrogen and oxygen which is meaningless. Yes you vould change the rgb channel its assigned to, but it still has meaning in the final image and therefore value scientifically. This method does not. Ironically, if you had just taken the data from the green and blue chanels, and boosted them, it would have given you a better result as they contain the Oiii data.
Data from all the channels was applied, especially since green is where a lot of good luminance data lies. But this method is a manual way of reworking the data. The next video goes much deeper.
good job. im in Canada too, Ontario, skies have been horrible ,rain smoke and fires.
What are the ranges of sensor pixel size for the uncooled cameras? If you have a longer focal length scope, e.g. C8 SCT are any of the uncooled cameras are a good match?
More choice with short focal length telescope.
I am not sure I understand the question. You can get cameras with sensors of various pixel size both cooled and uncooled but you probably have more choices with smaller pixel size. Technically, everything amateur astronomers and astrophotographers are using is small pixel. ON professional telescopes pixel size is huge in comparison.
Very interesting. I could give a try to this little camera and technique.
Thx :).
I wonder if it's an heavy cooled camera is even usefull when outdoor temp is -5/-10 or less, most of the time.
I live in Canada. Summer nights here are rarely warmer than 15C, so heat is never a big problem. If it got hotter, you may want a cooled camera. On winter nights, I often don't bother to even turn cooling on, not if it's below 0C. That's with the Player One Ares-M which uses the 533 sensor.
The Uranus-C isn't immune to heat, but it appears to affect these modern sensors so much less. If you live in a really hot area, your results may vary.
@SKYST0RY Canada too. I'm starting Astrophotography and will definitely play your videos.
Thx for your content.
Outraged at suggestion that it should be fun
I think so because I’m having great results with the ASI 585 MC
Great Video, and very bold claims….👍🏻
Not really my claims, though. The results of several very good papers by Jason Dain and Blair MacDonald where they ran outcome analyses an OSC and mono cam of the same make and sensor. I think it was the ZWO ASI2600. Their results were that unless one lives in a region of superb seeing and above most of the atmosphere, there is little to no benefit in the extra resolution of a mono camera as modern technology has become so good that now the atmosphere is the primary resolution limiter.
Hi, I am actually looking at a uncooled OSC planetary cam with a large sensor, over a cooled OSC cam that is priced twice the cost. Would you mind doing a step-by-step Pixinsight & Affinity Photos tutorial on bringing the best out of an uncooled OSC planetary cam like what you just did for this video? Thank you so much! :)
I plan to do so shortly. In this video, I barely pushed the possibilities of the uncooled OSC. Later today I am putting up a new video where you will see a whole other level of potential for the cooled OSC.
yes but no. Locally, an ASI imx533 is $1400. Converted price for their uncooled fan imx533 is bout $1000..
What would I pick, save $400 but lose TEC cooling and have it from a unknown brand that is china based
or spend $400 more, have TEC cooling and have it from a known big player in the industry
Reality is sony charges an amount for their chip and the only other way to save money is cut costs elsewhere
If the camera was $599 AUD.. vs $1400AUD for the ASI.. id spend the $599... but its not. its near the same and so "you get what you pay for / the poor man pays twice" kicks in
It's always a personal choice, but if you're referring to Player One vs ZWO (as the big known brand) be aware that ZWO is notorious for cutting costs on build quality and planned obsolescence. By contrast, Player One builds their cameras as if they were the Rolls-Royce of astrocameras--top notch every part. Great customer service which I know from personal experience. And they were started by ZWO engineers who got tired of the way things were done at ZWO.
@@SKYST0RY I agree with you. I use 3 ASI cameras, the latest one being ASI533MM (with ZWO 8 position filter wheel). But then I watched Cuiv videos and did some reaseach and realized that all of these camera are made in China, and then rebranded, and uses the same Sony's chip. My next camera is now definitely Touptek's ATR3CMOS26000KMA which I am getting a new one is just $1297 Canadian dollars (including shipping charges, and cheaper than my 533MM). This camera is exactly like ZWO ASI 2600MM, and company even has better aftersales services. I am going to order by the end of this month.
With my experience with Chinese companies it’s usually.
First Get a lot of orders / profit and when they have their consumer base built they start to cut corners. This is so common in the manufacturing industry where it actually kills millions in China with tofu dreg projects. I know ZWO does it. Hope player one doesn’t fall down the same path
Some companies have remained great in terms of quality, such as DJI. I like to think Player One will also be one. I've by and large avoided ZWO because of the increasing complaints regarding quality control and that they don't respond to customer service requests much anymore.
8:24 Give this man a mic so he can drop it to the ground
Colour doesn't exist. Fascinating. I always wondered.
It's oddly true. It's only perception, and on top of that the colors we perceive are subject to the nuances of the color cones in our eyes and the way our brains process color. Your green, for example, may not be the same as my green.
Nice.
The final result of this ( and almost all astrophotos lately) has almost nothing to do with camera or telescope...and a lot to do with filters and new processing techniques in processing software. Guys like Bill Blanshen and Russ Croman have revolutionized processing to the point where anyone can crank out an amazing pictures. Cooled...uncooled....doesn't matter.
That's absolutely correct. But the original data capture does matter. We've just reached a point where incredible telescopes and cameras are par for the course.
That's true..but bad data is more likely to be caused by poor focus, poor tracking and bad seeing than sub-par camera and telescope.
@@Mr77pro Exactly. II've seen countless images taken with superb gear that suffered poor editing. And superb images taken with sub-par gear that was saved by skill with the equipment and good editing.
Sorry, as good an image as that is it is nowhere near as impressive as some of the images I have seen captured with cooled mono cameras ( not by me I might add ) I do agree with your comments relating to colours though and of course if you are on a tight budget then an OSC is a great investment (with the correct light pollution filters if you don't have access to dark skies) as they do give great results but replacing a cooled mono astronomy camera for detail and versatility any time soon? I don't think so. Many astro photographers seem to use both. Being simpler OSC are great for grab and go set ups.
I think presently uncooled OSC and mono cameras are not quite as good as cooled cameras, but they are getting very close. In this video, I was only using a 9MP camera and manual editing, and the results were good. In the next video, coming out this weekend, I will show even better techniques that push an ordinary uncooled OSC even further with significantly better and more accurate results. The edge cooled cameras have over uncooled is getting very slender. I don't think it's that long till cooling isn't necessary at all.
@@SKYST0RYThanks for your reply I for one will be very happy when a sensor doesn't require cooling but as it is I can't see how a OSC will match the performance of a mono not because of the actual sensor (which is essentially the same) but the effect of the embedded filter matrix used in OSC cameras. I know modern OSC cams give really good images and my next cam will probably be one but it will be used as well as and not as replacement for my mono cams.
@@SKYST0RY Thanks your reply. Although modern OSC cams are excellent I can't see they can match a mono not because of the sensor ( which is effectively the same for both) but the effect of the filter matrix embedded in the OSC variety. Basically for a given sensor size which ever filter is placed in front of a mono sensor will result in every pixel in the sensor array recieving photons at that wavelength. This is not the case when a RGB matrix is placed in front
@@KevinRudd-w8s This is a common misunderstanding, or at least something which is both true and not. The Bayer matrix does filter light by color, but the off color pixels are not black. They are still receiving light and thus data. In AP it is often assumed those green pixels are wasted. They are not. They continue to receive a great deal of data whatever color filter is in front of them. You can see this in two ways. Put a red filter on a telescope or camera and image some trees, buildings, whatever. Split the color channels in an image processor and observe the green channel. You're going to see a lot of data on the green channel regardless of the filter. Or photograph a DSO object lacking green then split and check the green channel. Again, you're going to see a lot of data on the green channel. Try putting a colored filter in front of the OSC sensor and then photographing the DSO object and check your green channel. The green channel of an OSC is still capturing data that will contribute to overall luminance and sharpness. If you use a narrowband filter on an OSC, that is a disadvantage to the OSC, but if you use a dual or triband filter on an OSC, you can now capture all three narrowband channels at once. So then you have to consider if it is more efficient to shoot narrowband on a mono camera one channel at a time, or is it more efficient to shoot dual or triband on an OSC sensor, a situation in which each band uses only part of a sensor but they are used all at once. Then you have to factor if you are working faster shooting calibration frames for each narrowband channel, along with changing filters and focus through the night, or if you are working faster shooting all night with no filter changes, no extra refocusing and only needing one set of calibration frames in the morning. And even then, these are not the biggest limiters (or equalizers). The biggest ones are seeing and the Dawes limit. And then you have to weigh that yet again against the vastly greater cost of a cooled mono cam with filters and filter wheel vs a much more affordable decent uncooled broadband camera. An uncooled broadband camera with a higher megapixel count is going to level the playing field even more. These are yet more advanced topics we'll cover later.
I think a lot of people are emotional because a $400 camera is rivaling their $4000 mono setups lol
Not sure if its just me but I am not impressed by that image and fail to see how you can say its the end of cooled cameras. A cooled mono camera completely trumps this in every aspect.
Slightly trumps them in every respect . . . provided you have 3 to 5 times the money to spend. And the difference is now so slight it won't be long till there is no edge in using cooled mono cams. Take a look at the next video.
@@SKYST0RYnot sure what you are using to reference with but the difference is not slight.
@@clairehunter7911 Again, take a look at the next video.
What if our ancestors thousands of years ago on a new moon night looked up under bortal 0 skies and could see cloud like nebula and called that heaven?
A clear sky is a remarkable thing, and filled with enough to keep one wondering about the numinous forever.
Yeahhhh but.... Cooled cameras mean you don't have to take darks on the night - huge benefit.
Cooled cameras are the only cameras where darks are really useful, though you can build up a dark library in advance. They are far less necessary these days, though. Most persons shooting with sensors like the IMX585 or similar don't bother with darks at all anymore. For years, all I've used are flats and biases for calibration.
cooled camera can take frames at the perefect temp at any time. that a killer in astrophotography
Thats why you build dark libraries when you have the time to. You dont need 100% exact temps for calibration frames, 3-5°C difference doesnt matter.
Cooled cameras are heavily overpriced. Some peeps on Cloudynights have calculated that any given cooled ZWO cam is, on average, 300-400 dollars more expensive than their uncooled variants. That is in no way justified.
I've been experimenting with this with my Ares-M. I am seeing very little difference whether I turn on the cooling unit unless its above about 10C.
Does infinity photo do sky replacement for milkyway photography? I simply WON'T subscribe to Adobe, screw the money hungry.... I have a 2017 version.
I don't know if Affinity Photo does sky replacement like PhotoShop does. But I can tell you it's fairly easy to replace almost anything with it.
This IS a cooler on your camera
It's a cooling fan, pretty much the same as is on your CPU. $50 bucks from Player One.
Not the same kind of cooler you’re thinking of and even said he doesn’t turn it on usually unless it’s a very hot summer night.
Theres passive cooling, active air cooling and peltier cooling. This camera has air cooling, which is basically nothing compared to peltier cooling, aka TEC.
Even with the fan not running, there IS some little amount of cooling going on tho, as the heatsink draws heat away from the camera body faster.