Planetary Camera Recommendation AP175 F8

Equipment Planetary Camera Buying Advice
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rhombus avatar
rhombus avatar

I recently upgraded scopes to a AP175EDF F8 and am wanting to adjust my equipment/camera to match. I am also moving the setup into a permanent observatory that I eventually will have remote control over.

I currently have an ASI462MC planetary camera. A TV 3x barlow and a TV 2× 2” powermate and a 5× 1.25” powermate. I also have a ZWO ADC, which I am placing between the camera and powermate using a t2 adapter with the 5x powermate lens cell screwed in. I had a custom adapter made for the 3x cell to get the spacing correct while using the ADC. I put this setup together a number of years ago as I recall the distance between the powermate/barlow and camera will change the effective magnification ratio. I am a bit rusty on all of this and am looking for recommendations.

I see ZWO has some new planetary cameras out that have a larger sensor size (with similar 2.9um pixels). Would these be better suited for framing and using ROI to get the framerates up? What would be the ideal setup?

Thanks!

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andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
Frankly, to get to the next step you'd need to move to mono imaging, not just another colour camera (that 462 is pretty good already). Image scale wise you'd be sorted with 3x barlow, tops. I always found the 5x PM to introduce too much spherical aberration in the shorter wavelengths. A larger sensor would only serve you (assuming flat field) for lunars/Solar imagery. wasted on planets, all of them.
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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar

IMO what you really want are small pixels. The smallest pixel planetary camera that I know of is the QHY5iii715C which sports a pixel size of 1.45 microns. I have this camera and it’s wonderful for lunar and planetary work. At F/8 with no Barlow you’d be very close to the maximum focal ratio of F/10 for lunar and planetary over sampling (F = between 5 and 7 X the pixel size in microns). You can use this and be in the proper oversampling range without the need for additional optics. That’s the power of ultra small pixels. Unfortunately, the the Sony 715 isn’t available in monochrome. I wish it was….

It can deliver on brighter deep sky objects as well:

https://app.astrobin.com/i/joqhd2

Pretty good for a sub-$300 camera.

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