grinning like a cheshire cat...

Got a delivery this morning... QSI583ws

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Well I hope to see some of the results here

Nice.

Never seen one of those before. I'm also interested in seeing the results.

You'll definitely be seeing the results here, don't you worry about that If these clouds go away soon, that is Had quite a few clear nights leading up to the delivery of the camera. Day I got it, clouds/storms etc. You know the story...

So, educate me on the benefits of that camera. I'm not huge into the astro stuff so I don't really know anything about it.

There's plenty of benefits of these astro-specific CCD sensors instead of DSLRs' CMOS. You can cool the sensor down to below zero degrees Celcius, which means much, much less noise for long exposures of 5-10 minutes. It has a greater Quantum Efficiency than DSLRs, which means it's more sensitive and catches the faint stuff better. It has a greater well depth, which means you can expose for longer before saturating the pixels. It's more sensitive at the infrared end of the spectrum, which is better for capturing nebulosity which is predominantly at IR wavelengths. It's a mono sensor as opposed to the bayer matrix on DSLRs, so every pixel can be used instead of 4 pixels of RGGB. The list does go on.

Bottom line is that these cameras are specifically made for astrophotography in every way. Using DSLRs gets us part of the way there, modding a DSLR to be more sensitive to IR light goes a long way to helping, but the noise, sensitivity, and well depth just can't compete. Don't get me wrong, I've had heaps of fun with my modded 40D, and there's plenty of hugely talented guys producing awesome astro-images with DSLRs, but the time is right for me to move on....

I just saw the price. ~faints~ Astrophotography can be a VERY expensive hobby!

naddieuk wrote in post #11946838
I just saw the price. ~faints~ Astrophotography can be a VERY expensive hobby!

Then you've got the optics to connect it to, the really expensive tracking mount, the ultra solid tripod or more likely pillar mount, the dome to cover it all ...............

I am truly green with envy at the dedication that some people have to this hobby.

Tis a very slippery downhill slope this hobby. But it's fun

troypiggo wrote in post #11947090
Tis a very slippery downhill slope this hobby. But it's fun

I've still got my fingernails dug in Just!

Congrats Troy, this camera couldn't be in better hands. I can't wait to see the wonder. Awesome!

Merry Christmas!

new toys are always sooo pretty!!

No clear skies or opportunity to use it yet, so am currently building up calibration libraries of darks, flat-darks, and biases at various temperatures, exposure times and binning combinations. It's more time-consuming than I anticipated.

eg I just finished a run at -10 degrees C. 20 exposures each of 5, 10, and 15 minutes, plus 20 bias, plus 20 flat-darks at 5 secs - all of those each at 1x1 binning and 2x2 binning. Add that all up and it's taken about 20 hours! Phew!!

And I still have -5 deg, -15 deg, -20 deg, and possibly even -25 deg to go! Will end up being a week long marathon!

I'm going through all this pain now, not really knowing the cameras capabilities (and mine!). Next time I'll trim it down to just the more common temperatures and exposures etc that I end up using.