ASI294MC-Pro Sensor analysis & optimal exposure time

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jjaipa@yahoo.com
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2020 2:07 am

ASI294MC-Pro Sensor analysis & optimal exposure time

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Post by jjaipa@yahoo.com »

I'm a little impressed and skeptical and wanted to confirm my optimal exposure time. I listened to Dr Robin Glover's talk - link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RH93UvP358z and was very impressed. I'm a purist and think/hope I can get deep sky astrophotography done with out guiding. I'm currently shooting 5 minute subs, according to this presentation, I should be roughly at 90 seconds. After doing the sensor analysis, it's showing 28 seconds. I included some screen shots to help. I'm just wondering which is correct, I plan to experiment but being in North Jersey good sky conditions are hard to come by.

The 90 second calculation comes from the Optimal Sub length slide in Dr. Glover's presentation (at 50:28). A 2.5e read noise calls for 32 second sub length. I have 1.74e, so I used 30 seconds and multiplied by 3 since I'm using a OSC camera which gets me to 90 seconds.

Equipment:
ASI294MC-Pro. (Pixel size 4.63, 1x1 binning)
QE of 75%
Celestron Edge HD 11" with CGX-L Mount
F7 Focal Reducer
No filters
PHD2 guiding

Sky brightness (sky background calculator), Bortle number 5.3, F7.0, 4.63pixel at 75% QE gives me 1.74 e/pixel/s (I used 2 in the histogram)

Assuming a read noise limit of 5% and a total stack of 60 minutes here's what SharpCap Pro says:
Unity gain of 119: 283 seconds
Dynamic range Gain 121: 28.8 seconds (WOW, is this correct?)
Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 8.44.59 PM.png
Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 8.44.59 PM.png (509.74 KiB) Viewed 2410 times
Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 8.45.19 PM.png
Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 8.45.19 PM.png (486.04 KiB) Viewed 2410 times
Thanks in advance for any help/guidance - Jim
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