Opticstar DS-335C any opinions on this?

Dave (et al),

a lot of CCD chips now are 'low noise' so cooling is less of an issue than a few years back.

That said, if you can get cooling, get it. It will increase performance. However, remeber, if you take good darks then you can eliminate most noise.

As ever, this game is horses for course. If you want to emulated Jim Misti or Rob Gendler, you'll not go shopping for an imager with less than 10 grand in your pocket. If you want to beat them, think the price of a lucury car (40K plus).

If however, you're new to astrophotography (1 year or less) and have a medium budget mount and optics, cooling is not going to be high up on your priority list.

First and foremost, sepnd your resources (time/money) on the mount. Then on the optics (collimation, focusing etc) then, and only then, choose your imager.

The Meade DSI's and similar are good first imagers. The DSI's also have a retrofit third-party cooler available for a reasonable price.

I would recommend to anyone that you clearly state your goals - planetary, deep sky, widefield, etc etc. The kit you need for each, and how it performs, is different. No one system will suit all types of astrophotography.

Dave

What the guys said pretty much sums it up. Another draw back of smaller pixels is lower sensitivity. Imagine the pixels like little buckets, the bigger the are the more light they collect. As trevor rightly says you need to get the pixel scale close to the average seeing conditions.

As for cooling, Dave Mc is right, newer chips are better however I don;t think they have gotten to the point where cooling can be dispensed with just yet (I know Dave Mc is not saying that). Its just that, for the money they are asking for this camera I would expect cooling. I think you would get far better value for money from a DSLR like the canon 350D/400D than this particular camera.