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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2016 1:11:30 GMT
Finally gave the GStar Ex-3 its first run last night. The Ex-3 looks like a re-badged Altair Hypercam with the Sony IMX 178 colour sensor. I should say first up that I don’t have a lot of experience with digital cameras so I’m pretty sure this camera can perform better than my images would suggest. I set the camera up for “fast” rather than “pretty” and each capture has a 5 frame dark subtraction. As far as I can see, using darks will be necessary for most deep sky work. Once you get to about 10s exposure hot pixels start to intrude. Darks can be saved and re-applied and it looks like you can make small changes to the exposure settings without having to re-do the dark. Each image is a single snapshot without live-stacking I used a 5” achromat operating at about f5. I’d say that exposures for DSOs will be in the 15-30s range at that f-ratio if you want nice amount of detail. This is $580AUD camera so I don’t think you’re going to get “fast” AND “pretty” – that eternal trade-off in video astronomy. But I think it will be competitive in that price bracket.
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Post by ChrisV on Nov 19, 2016 4:47:42 GMT
Really really nice for single exposures !! Stack em ... go on you know you want to do it.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2016 7:35:14 GMT
Well yes I did stack a few. But don't tell Ken. He was very keen to see how the camera performed live.
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Post by davy on Nov 19, 2016 8:27:27 GMT
Lol,, your going to break his heart,😂😉
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Post by Dragon Man on Nov 19, 2016 17:43:49 GMT
Stacking Thanks for your efforts to show me what it can do at near-live. Hmmm. . . not quite what I expected. But you never know, as you get used to the camera it may give up a few secrets
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Post by ChrisV on Nov 19, 2016 22:20:51 GMT
And when you do the stacking you can stretch. I think sharpcap only brings up the histogram stretching when you stack (even if n=1).
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2016 1:14:18 GMT
Ken
You're welcome.
I'm pretty sure the camera can do better with an experienced operator.
How do these grabs stack up against other uncooled 178 cameras eg ZWO, Altair, QHY?
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Post by ChrisV on Nov 20, 2016 1:18:15 GMT
They look bloody great. When i get a clear night I'll show you what they look like on my zwo224
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2016 1:38:35 GMT
Chris
Thanks I'd like see those.
The G-Star control software (ToupSky) has a histogram adjustment that I did tweak, possibly not very expertly.
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Post by Dragon Man on Nov 20, 2016 11:37:58 GMT
Give it time Robert. You'll learn some more tweaks and settings. The more you fiddle with the settings the more you will see what works and what doesn't.
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