New Camera

[Graeme1858]

Just bought a ZWO ASI 294MC-PRO USB 3.0 Cooled Colour Camera

Having spent a lot of time on online calculators it's the first, cooled, non oversampled colour camera for my telescope in my price range.

Thought I would go for a OSC camera at this stage and then get into monochrome/filters after I retire and have more time!

Anyone have experience of one of these?

Regards

Graeme

[Juno16]

I hope to experience a 294 (or something similar) someday Graeme!

Lots of folks here use that camera. I believe Bryan and JT for two.

Congratulations!

In hot and swampy Mississippi cooling would be an amazing thing!

[Graeme1858]

Cheers Jim

My birthday is not till August but I read on here that ZWO suppliers are running low on their stock so I clicked the go button this morning!

Regards

Graeme

[Greenman]

Nice camera, like Jim it’ll be a while for I got that deep in to my now empty pockets (not that I don’t want one).

Very low carry over of blue sensitivity in the red end of the spectrum. I think you will produce some great images.

[Larry 1969]

Congratulations on the new camera! I've seen some stunning images taken with it!
One thing you should be aware of is that camera is prone to "Amp Glow".
That is not a deal breaker, just something to be managed with dark frames.
Here's a link about it on CN. The first post shares a link to one of the OP's dark frames and illustrates the glow.

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/6564 ... -amp-glow/

Have fun and happy imaging!

Larry

[Star Dad]

I've had my 294 MC cooled for about a year now. A fantastic imaging camera! I love it.

Mmmm... I don't seem to get amp glow. I get some vignetting which I easily deal with - probably because of the "new" 5,000K LED street lights. StarTools deals with it easily.

[Graeme1858]

Nice camera, like Jim it’ll be a while for I got that deep in to my now empty pockets (not that I don’t want one).

Very low carry over of blue sensitivity in the red end of the spectrum. I think you will produce some great images.

Ta, I hope so, looking forward to trying!

Congratulations on the new camera! I've seen some stunning images taken with it!
One thing you should be aware of is that camera is prone to "Amp Glow".
That is not a deal breaker, just something to be managed with dark frames.
Here's a link about it on CN. The first post shares a link to one of the OP's dark frames and illustrates the glow.

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/6564 ... -amp-glow/

Have fun and happy imaging!

Larry

Thanks for the link Larry. I'll go have a look. If I come close to that image you posted recently with your ASI071, I'll be well chuffed.

I've had my 294 MC cooled for about a year now. A fantastic imaging camera! I love it.

Mmmm... I don't seem to get amp glow. I get some vignetting which I easily deal with - probably because of the "new" 5,000K LED street lights. StarTools deals with it easily.

Cheers SD. Amp glow shouldn't be a problem. And the CN thread above is a year old so ZWO might have addressed the cause of the problem now.

Regards

Graeme

[Larry 1969]

Just to be clear. I wasn't trying to cause worry about amp glow.
I was considering this camera myself and probably would have bought it if I didn't come across such a good deal on my 071.
I just wanted to make you aware of it so there was no surprise. Amp glow is fairly common and can be completely mitigated with dark frames.
And that post it old so maybe ZWO took care of it by now... Take a few darks and see for yourself... Nothing at all to be worried about if it's there.

You're going to love that camera!

Larry

[Graeme1858]

No worries! Amp glow is a thing with most cameras if my research is accurate and easily dealt with.

Regards

Graeme

[JayTee]

Hi Graeme,

I got my ASI294MC Pro about six weeks ago. I am still waiting for more than 30 minutes of clear skies to fully test its capabilities. In the newer versions that we own, they fixed the amp glow problem. There is no more amp glow associated with this camera.

It'll be fun to compare images, I'm going to use mine through my 6RC and my 80mm APO and see what results I get. Assuming I ever get any clear skies.

Congrats and cheers,
JT

[Graeme1858]

That's good to hear JT.

An 80mm APO shot will give a nice wide view, that should catch you lots of the reflection nebulae. My FOV will be just a tad narrower than my 600D. I might stick your 6RC into a calculator just to be nosy!

I'm really looking forward to the jump in quality. My 600D does an alright job but there's horizontal banding on the image every time.

Regards

Graeme

[starfield]

Enjoy the new camera. I certainly enjoy mine. The amp glow is easily dealt with a set of darks. Only issue I've run into is frost/condensation on the sensor if I cool it too fast or push the cooler over about 75%. I avoid this by trying to stay below 75% and also turn on the camera 15-30 minutes ahead of starting capturing. Not everyone seems to run into this issue.

One other thing I've found the camera really excels at is EAA. When paired with SharpCap it's really fun to show folks a lot of details of faint fuzzies in near real time. Also, with LiveStack, you can have best of both worlds, watch image build while you dither and save individual frames for processing later.

Steve

[Graeme1858]

One other thing I've found the camera really excels at is EAA. When paired with SharpCap it's really fun to show folks a lot of details of faint fuzzies in near real time.

Thanks Steve

Do you only get the frost problem if the humidity is high?

Shared EAA sounds fun! Do you do this with people gathered around the monitor or do you broadcast over the internet? That's something I wouldn't mind doing. The Butcher on here was showing how he shows his all sky cam on YouTube.

Regards

Graeme

[starfield]

Graeme, frost seems to be impacted more by the % power applied than anything else. Also seems to go away after 15-30 min. My camera is a couple of years old so perhaps this isn't even an issue anymore. If you're curious how you're camera behaves, you can take a flat when you first get to temp and then take a series in 5 min intervals. Problem doesn't even show up for me unless I'm pushing -10 or -15 degrees and now I just turn on camera early while I'm doing the rest of my setup.

As for EAA, I've only used my laptop screen to date. For a large group, I imagine hooking the laptop up to a larger monitor would be nice. My favorite set-up for outreach is to use my dob for high power views or star clouds/clusters. Then use the EAA rig to show galaxies and nebula which normally look like "smudges" to most folks.

Given Covid, doing a virtual star party via You Tube would be fun. Have to look at those posts from The Butcher. Enjoy the new camera!

[Graeme1858]

It's not usually much above 20°C here and generally less so I probably won't need to push it hard.

[mention]TheButcher[/mention] 's YouTube thread is here:

viewtopic.php?f=66&t=11134&p=94716#p94716

Might be an interesting project (all sky camera) for later once I have got used to the new camera (Youtube).

Regards

Graeme