Opticstar DS-335C any opinions on this?

Hi

Does anyone have any opinions on this CCD camera. Seems to have a lot of pixils for the price compared to the equivalent DSI, ATIK161c, etc..

www.opticstar.com/Run/Astronomy/Astro.as...&p=0_10_0_50_202


It's not petier cooled so max exposure is only 6 min but I can live with this as i would need to get a wedge ayway to get longer exposure. Does anyone see any drawbacks to this.

DB

David can you get upto 6 mins without a wedge!?! I have never seen these before!

Hi David,

I've looked into this one before. Seems to be almost the same as the Sac10 but without the Peltier cooler. In fact it's even supplied with the same software as the Sac. I'd be surprised if it would give 6 minutes without amp glow or noise.

They have a more expensive version with cooling.

It's small pixel size makes it great at short focal lengths but it would only suit an SCT with Fastar or Hyperstar with an 8 inch SCT, for example you would get .35 arcsec/pixel @ f10, .56 @ f6.3, & 1.06 @ f3.3.

So if you've a short scope it's winner, but not for the long ones.

Trev

Thanks for the replies guys

Mathew

No without a wedge i would guess less then 2 minutes at best. So you would just have to stack and derotate the frames .

Trevor

so that means you would need to use a focal reducer ideally an f3.3 one if possible. Other thing I have realised is autoguing. Since the nice folks from meade have decided to wthdraw the APM module there currently dosent sem to be a ST4 connection possible with the lx90. This would be an issue at some point. I understand the DSI can image and autoguide at the same time and dosent need a apm module. hmmmm further research will be required

DeeBee,

What Trevor said about cooling. No cooling whatsoever is a baad idea.
Also the pixels are quite small. You could bin 2x2 to improve this but then you end up with 1/4 of the pixels.

Value for money? You decide. For me no way!

Thanks for this DG.

I remember you explained at your's and JG's (excellent) talk about imaging why pixcel size is important and although i understood it at the time I forget the reason now :oops:

What is the drawback of small pixcels v large pixcels and when is one better then the other.