If You Can’t Shoot Lights, Shoot Darks

[Juno16]

Evening All,

I have had the ASI 533 mc pro for about a week now and haven’t even got close to a clear night.

Looks like I have a while to go before I get a clear one, so I decided to shoot a darks library (or start on one). Unfortunately, I really am not sure what exposure length to use.

I was shooting my Nikon D5300 at iso 400 for 240 seconds on a good night and as low as 120 seconds in the moonlight. That is with a F7 scope reduced to 5.6 with an IDAS LPS D-1 filter.

I shot my summer set tonight at 0C. Exposures of 60, 120, 180, and 240 seconds at unity gain (100).

Just having the ability to shoot darks in a dark spare room at a set sensor temperature is worth the cost of the camera without any other benefits!

I think that since I still have several nights of clouds in front of me, I will shoot a set for 300 seconds at 0C and then repeat the routine at -10C.

If anyone has converted from dslr to dedicated OSC astrocamera has any suggestions on a dark library, please share.

Question:

I bought a 3 meter usb 3 cable to add to the ASI supplied 2 meter cable to connect to my imaging laptop. I quickly realized that it doesn’t work at that distance (3 meters max), so I connected a usb2 extension cable. The usb 2 extension cable is 3 meters long on top of the ASI 2 meter cable and it works fine. Even with the focuser connected to the usb 2 hub on the camera. File transfer to the ssd seems quick. The darks look fine with no amp glow at all.

I did order a one meter usb 3 extension cable to add to the 2 meter ASI usb 3 cable. I think it will be long enough to work.

Just wondering if anyone else uses usb 2 with their usb 3 camera.

Thanks!

[starfield]

Just wondering if anyone else uses usb 2 with their usb 3 camera.

Thanks!

Hi Jim,

A while back I inadvertently hooked up a 2.0 cable to my 294mc and it worked fine, for the most part. I did notice the capture started to lag when I was shooting dark flats (super fast) but it still worked. This leads me to think you might run into issues if you were doing lucky imaging on planets, but I haven't tested this.

Steve

[Juno16]

Just wondering if anyone else uses usb 2 with their usb 3 camera.

Thanks!

Hi Jim,

A while back I inadvertently hooked up a 2.0 cable to my 294mc and it worked fine, for the most part. I did notice the capture started to lag when I was shooting dark flats (super fast) but it still worked. This leads me to think you might run into issues if you were doing lucky imaging on planets, but I haven't tested this.

Steve

Thanks Steve,

That makes sense. I don’t plan on doing any video or planetary, so, I should be good there.

I will try the 1 meter usb 3 extension cable when it comes in though. Even if it works, I might stick with the usb 2 cable just for the extra few feet of length. I really don’t feel like messing with an active usb3 cable if I don’t need to. I’m just going to the laptop outside.

Thanks gor your thoughts!