ASI2600MC Pro- Initial observations
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 10:56 am
Finally received my ZWO ASI2600MC Pro and was anxious to try it despite a lot going against me last night:
1- sky was poor/below average
2. I only have 1.25" filters on my C11" at the moment so I had to do a little cropping
3- my guiding stopped working and could not fix it so I did 45 sec unguided subs
The combination of the above only allowed me to stack 3 mins worth of 45 sec subs. However, the positives were:
1. The 64 bit version of SharpCap worked great
2. The image produced nice color with low noise (like my ASI533) despite the poor/below average seeing.
Gain settings: I tried 0, 150, 200. This image is from gain 150; offset 10 using a L-Pro filter. Gain 0 produces a nice histogram but at 45s subs you can barely see the image. Gains of 150 and 200 appear to work but the left side of the histogram is clipped off. So, I need to play with this some more. I have seen gain 0 used with 5 min subs collected and the images look great.
I need to sort out my guiding problem but if I cannot, I may just collect a lot of 45-60s unguided subs. I prefer to do 90s subs but I need guiding for that and even for 60s at times.
1- sky was poor/below average
2. I only have 1.25" filters on my C11" at the moment so I had to do a little cropping
3- my guiding stopped working and could not fix it so I did 45 sec unguided subs
The combination of the above only allowed me to stack 3 mins worth of 45 sec subs. However, the positives were:
1. The 64 bit version of SharpCap worked great
2. The image produced nice color with low noise (like my ASI533) despite the poor/below average seeing.
Gain settings: I tried 0, 150, 200. This image is from gain 150; offset 10 using a L-Pro filter. Gain 0 produces a nice histogram but at 45s subs you can barely see the image. Gains of 150 and 200 appear to work but the left side of the histogram is clipped off. So, I need to play with this some more. I have seen gain 0 used with 5 min subs collected and the images look great.
I need to sort out my guiding problem but if I cannot, I may just collect a lot of 45-60s unguided subs. I prefer to do 90s subs but I need guiding for that and even for 60s at times.