Which planetary camera should I pick, ZWO ASI585MC vs ASI662MC

Hi Barry,

Truthfully, the 585MC is a known performer as an OSC camera for planetary. however, proper sampling requires some knowledge about your available scope and barlows(or lack thereof) that you intend to image with.

I have the 662MM and the 585MC-P. The 585 has a wider chip with the same pixel size to the 662 but is over $200 more.

Could you describe your setup further?

Barry,

If you were limited to those two options, I would go with the 585MC and utilize either a 1.5x barlow(slightly undersampled) or 2x barlow(oversampled).

If you were willing to consider some other options, the ASI676(2um pixels) pairs perfectly with the C9.25 and would even allow your to forego the use of a barlow for proper sampling.

Kind Regards,

Bradley

Honestly both will give good results. Pixel size is the same so it really depends on if you need the larger FOV of the 585. I have the 585 and it works well but I’m usually using an ROI that’s pretty small to get the frame rate up. The 1662 will give you a faster frame rate when shooting the full frame.

andrea tasselli · Dec 5, 2025, 08:30 PM

You have to use ROI to get an acceptable frame rate which you would already get with the 662 straight out of the box. And it's cheaper.

Cost is the really only advantage the 662 provides. The ROI argument makes very little sense considering you can easily adjust the ROI in any planetary capture software(Firecapture, Sharpcap). To truly maximize the framerate on any given planet, you would still need to crop the native 662 ROI as well.

andrea tasselli · Dec 5, 2025, 09:15 PM

You'd still get a better frame rate without using ROI from the ASI662 and that's a fact. And you'd still get a pretty decent frame rate at full resolution. I can't see any good reason of having the 585 if all you want is shoot planets. I also like the fact its more balanced in colour response than the 585 and it has less cross-talk.

On the contrary, having access to a larger chip can be very beneficial when collimating or imaging the Jovian/saturnian moons for sequences. For a beginner in planetary imaging, focusing and even finding the planet can be an issue. Again, a larger chip makes life easier here. Also, for the same ROI (a one-button click in Firecapture..) the frame rates will be similar for the two chips.

From the ZWO manuals:

585MC/MM

📷 585MC FPS.png

662MC

📷 662MC FPS.png

Per the manual, at the same ROI, the 585MC actually has a higher framerate(20% +)

Regarding your last point, the color response of the 585MC is actually considered better than the 662 by virtue of mimicking human vision and avoiding redundant overlap. Some of this is a moot point considering the ease of hitting auto-balance the color channels in Wavesharp,GIMP, or Astraimage.

Here’s a discussion regarding color correction on CN to address your last claim.

https://www.cloudynights.com/forums/topic/974346-colour-correction-matrices-for-popular-colour-camera-sensors-crosstalkbleed/

Credit to Con of CN for such an effort

Kind Regards,

Bradley