GREAT NEWS! the ASI2600 Pro I ordered in January just shipped from HighPoint! I’ve been using and learned on a used Canon 1000D. It has served me well but I’m so ready to move on. Now for another learning curve…I really don’t know what to expect.
ASI2600 Pro shipped today!!
I got mine about 3 weeks ago. I have several ZWO cameras and like the others, it will not disappoint. Built well and great color. However, two things to remember with this one: 1) make sure you get the backfocus correct; this camera has the sensor 17.5mm behind the female flange and 2) you better have a very powerful computer. My laptop is fine for data capture but kept crashing due to the very large file sizes when I tried to calibrate and post-process the images. I just ordered a threadripper computer to handle calibration and post-processing.
Well Written Helpful Insightful Concise
Thanks for the advice. Back focus will be a learning experience. I have a two year old iMac with several high speed SSDs so I/O is very fast. Hopefully enough CPU power! …or honey I know what you can get me for Christmas!
Good luck with it. It will be a big upgrade, especially this summer while its hot (I know the thermal noise in my 1000D made it just about un-usable in the heat last summer….). It's taken me a couple sessions to get comfortable with the settings for my astro-camera (Altair 269C), but it quickly starts to make sense. I'm looking forward to see what images you get.
Supportive
Speaking of cooling, set it at -10 and forget it. Much easier to build your dark library. Also no need to set the gain at anything bit unity.
-10 sounds good…heard not much benefit going colder. but I don't understand anything bit unity. lots for me to learn I'm sure. it's like I'm a kid and Christmas is next week!
Sorry John, meant to type anything "but" unity not bit. LoL. You will love your 2600.
Yeah it will definitely be an upgrade. But I’ve learned a lot with the Canon 1000D. I have a great refractor, WO 102GT, I just hypertuned my CGEM II, built a pier, and now finally a great camera. And I can see Polaris from my backyard! Life is good even isolating.
What I have learned to date: I use -10 temp and I talked about this on CN forum with others. No need to go lower and an argument can be made that -5 is sufficient but I am sticking with -10. For gain, the best I have found so far are either: 100 gain/50 offset or 200gain /10 offset with exposures from 90s to 180s. Color is excellent and very low noise with still a large dynamic range. I know others have used 0 gain ( 5 minute exposures) to get full dynamic range and I have seen nice images but I have not had as good success with that so I primarily am using 100g/50 offset with around 180s sub exposures but will tweak it now and then as, like I said, 200g/10 offset works just as well for me.
Good luck!!
Good luck!!
Helpful
Ouch! Didn’t have to know any of that with the DSLR. But couldn’t be harder than Pixinsight!
LOL……I use that too and that is what was crashing my laptop with the large file sizes…..you will have a blast