Hello - thanks, very interesting! Can you share a contact to Chris please?

I would love to see the same test with the mono camera set to bin 2x2. My thoughts are, the resolution of the higher camera can be empty (depending on the other equipment and environmental conditions) and by lowering the resolution it would than nearly equal the color camera but with a gain in signal:noise ratio (because the capture of photons per pixel well is higher). I’m just curious what the result would be.

спасибо, мужик. это полезное видео для меня.

I was very hyped when i saw your video. Its exactly my prblem. Have 2600MC and want to go mono. But is it worth? Watched the video, where are some interesting examples, BUT, I have few things to say - 1st - the whole 25% / 25% / 50% in MC is truth, BUT, all forget, that the rest of the pixels are computed afterwards by all surrounding pixels. Quite effectively. So, you end up with 100 / 100 / 100, but in red are 75% artifical, blue aswell and green 50% artifical signal. 2nd - you compared apples to stones there in NB - l Enhance isnt true narrowband for OSC, its quite wide at all the targeted wavelengths. I would love to see true narrowband battle - lets say processed 5nm filtres in mono camera vs hubble palette from antlia duo narrowband 5nm, with same scopes and same aperture. or at least You could try to use your mono filtres with the color camera - would be same result in my opinion. Also you didnt mention (or i missed it) if the RC and the newton were same F number, but i doubt it simply by the design of the telescopes. So my conclusion - mono will render theoretically 4x more non-artifical sharpness detail in all channels, but with atmosphere/mount errors/stacking, you end up maybe +10-30% sharpness. OSCs will give you more noise, just because of bayer computation of the pixels. But most interesting thing is, that is winning this battle for me is, that you CAN DO MORE ONE CHANNEL in mono narrowband. So, if you are in more polluted areas, you can do more OIII to simply boost the blues in your pictures, without being flooded like hell by noise. Clear skies, Tom.

Have to agree on waiting. I'm glad there are plenty of new adopters of harmonic drives because their older mounts hit the market at good discounts. I just picked up an excellent condition cgem 2 for much less than half of the current msrp! Now I just need to tune it up.

Wieso Graphitfett und nicht Teflonfett? Die Mechanik ist doch gar nicht hart genug, als das Graphit Sinn macht.

I didn't care so much about ultimate quality, but time to get there. To get the same picture quality, the MM needs a fraction of the time because the increase in signal to noise is only the square root of imagine time! The "small difference" that people usually report under the same test conditions are therefore a bit misleading, as most of the "little" in the improvement is already due to how improvement physically happens across time.

1:50 I guess another reason I'm not going to buy a off the shelf mount, they charge you an insane amount for something that really can't reliably lift and accurately move most equipment people with that much money use. Sure they work for those anemic refractors but the other scope types are not accounted for.

Can you give us Chris's contact information?

Hi Tom. If you were to were add more time to the color camera - increase the integration time- do you think it would catch up to the mono?

Just to give you my experience. Had the ra/dec boards replaced because of high frequency oscillation. Still have a problem with dec going into swings after meridian flip. All 3d balanced. My Neq6 gives better results than this mount.

As a beginner, it seems to me that one shot color cameras take photographs and mono camera using narrow band filters produce data with which the artist can then produce a beautiful painting. I use Sharp Cap and auto stack/color and do no post processing, in hopes of getting a photo that would look the same if I got close to the nebula and saw it through binoculars. I could very well be very wrong and misunderstanding of every thing. Don't know. 🤔

I just caught something that shocked me. You said the OSC sensors are sold with an IR cut filter, on both DSLR and deviated cooled Astro cameras? I know that was the case for your typical DSLR, but I assumed there was no such filter on the Astro cameras. I am about done with my mirrirless DSLR and was about to start seriously researching for a purchase in another month or maybe less. Well if there the case , if you confirm that back for me if you have the minute. Would appreciate that .

Servus warum sprichst du nicht Deutsch

Очень информативный обзор камер! Большое спасибо! Я как раз думал о приобретении моно-камеры к уже имеющейся 2600mc.

Nice video. You mentioned using a reducer @15:09 , what particular reducer are you using. Thank you. I have the 6" version and was curious. Thank you.

I am curious on how this was resolved. I have a CEM40 that is also showing a similar error message except mine says “Main Board” error. I can’t send it back under warranty unfortunately and the guys from Ioptron are being real jerks as I notified them of this problem prior to warranty expiration but due to massive chronic health problems I had to put the mount on the shelf for a very long time and now they are using the warranty period expiration as an excuse to get out of standing by their products. This will be the THIRD TIME in 3 years that a Chinese company has really screwed me over financially like this and it’s soured me so much on dealing with another Chinese based company to the degree That I will not consider another highly digital/complicated product again, from China. That culture it appears from what I can research believes in “getting one over” on anyone anytime the opportunity presents itself. I find this so incredibly immoral that I can’t begin to describe. Regardless, I am very curious on how you resolved this problem. Thanks much for your video! Cheers

F10….wow, must take hours to image anything. Good luck.

The EQ6-R should handle that scope.Unless your guide scope is hugh

$1000 extra to save hundreds of hours of processing

wow great video thanksssss. love the comparison of the noise levels - exactly i was looking for

As of today (nov 2023), the 2600 is on sale for $1500, which makes it very tempting. I currently own a 294mc pro for which my major complaints are 1) the amp glow, and 2) use of single or dual narrow band filters require carefully exposed flats due to an interference effect that apparently comes from the uneven thickness in a thin film coating somewhere in the sensor itself. Amp glow I can deal with ok, but it's that second issue that I found most annoying and would not buy the camera today if I were just starting out.

Am I to understand from your research that to photograph galaxies with the color camera you simply need almost double the time to have the detail of the mono camera photo? Since the color camera has 240 photons, and the mono camera has 400 photons. This is not very difficult to achieve. And for the photo of the nebula, I think it can be corrected with proper processing. The colors were too different between the two photos and maybe there are some processing errors. Greetings!

Thank you Tom for this video it was really helpful. I am still new to this and I found this video very helpful.

Years ago I was using one shot color camera with narrowband filters and I had very good results. The advantage was that with one shot color camera I could extract the HA emission with the attached HA filter and I had almost the same result as the mono camera with the same filter. At least to my eye, the difference was next to nothing. With the same color camera I also was able to get the real color of the stars without the filter and than combined in Photoshop for one beautiful nebula with RGB stars. Now I shoot mostly with the mono camera beacouse is 16 bit and my old one shot color is 12 bit, but my tests have shown that the difference is very very minimal between the mono and the color camera. It's all a matter of whether you have the necessary time at night to deal with changing filters and refocusing with each filter and many sleepless nights, or are you looking for the easy option with almost the same result. I'm thinking of doing another test soon. Thanks!

Excellent review! 👍

I'm just wondering if I need to worry right off the bat if the CGX L needs correction right out of the box ---- or it takes a bit of working before I get mount issues--

I would say monochrome cameras are worth the extra money, because of the greater flexibility they allow during processing of the light frames.

Interesting! Can you maybe explain how to use a tri-Bhatinhov mask for collimation? I understand how to use a regular Bhatinhov for focusing, but how to use the tri? I can’t find any reference sources on how to use it correctly!

the one thing i don't see reviewers talking about is Under & Over Sampling and suitability of a camera to a particular imaging setup. it is something that everyone needs to consider and just saying that one camera is better than another is misleading.

Please more please about cosmos and astronomy. Add. Like all about space. All subscriptions about Space 😮

Excellent comparison of MC and MM cameras. TY for clarity regarding the distinction between both. For MM cameras, what is your current choice for best quality LRGB and 3nm narrowband filters?

sono 2 fotocamere diverse, un confronto andrebbe fatto in modo piu imparziale e logico non a 100 gain e a 200 gain sulla 294...., gain uguale cielo uguale, telescopio uguale e fatte nello stesso momento, la meteo può cambiare, ecc ecc, é inutile paragonare la risoluzione, é ovvio che la 294 ne ha meno, quindi ingrandire le immagini é tutto a vantaggio della camera con piu pixel, mettendo sul piatto della bilancia le 2 fotocamere con il loro costo, tenedo in considerazione il campionamento e il telescopio che si andrà a utilizzare apertura e lughezza focale (se oltre il metro meglio pixel piu grandi) e non dimentichiamo la montatura magari qualcuno e gia oltre il limite di peso e pochi grammi potrebbero fare la differenza, il seeing medio della zona , per alcuni vincerà la 2600 per altri la 294.cieli sereni a tutti

This is a 1k$ camera vs a nearly 2k$ camera by the way. I don't feel like the price makes sense unless you exclusively do AP and exclusively use small aperture short refractors because with larger scopes like newts and dobs the signal is going to be so much more which makes noise less of a issue..but that's just my opinion with my limited knowledge on the subject. Within their own product stack they don't look bad.

Tom do you sell photos ? I would love to Make some tshirts. I tried to take photos last night on my canon but they turned out horrible. Thank you

Hey, habt ihr Erfahrungen mit den Skywatcher HEQ 5? Die wo die ringe drum rum grün sind. Gibt es da positive oder negative Erfahrung? Vg

Is it only me, or a great advantage for MM is ability to shoot with the moon quite up? I'm currently 'choosing the path' switching from DSLR, shoothing in B5-6 at home or B4 driving ~40 minutes from home. I think mono gives me mote shooting time (in my location) - there are lots of cloudless night with the moon and not so many ones without it :( I've tried my ff dslr with L-eNhance, but the results are hard to postprocess and the resolution is not the best. The proce is almoust twice as big for mono, but I can start shooting in H-alpha only, without the rest od filters and FW.

Nice comparison with a result to be expected! But when you perform your calculation you take 100% QE without taking the differences of MC and MM into account. Or do I miss something?

I don’t get the monochrome thing, you pay a fortune for the camera to remove the colours, then you pay another fortune in filters to put the colours back in….the difference can only be seen when side by side and barely at that. It’s an old fashioned idea, much like guiding.

Ha I did this same video a few months ago same camera and didn’t see you already had done it. Good stuff! I thought when I got to 2600 color camera with the new technology it was so good it could bridge the gap until I got the mono version and realized how much better it still is

50 kg? 50 kg is legendary AP1600GTO mount, which has 160-200Lb capacity. Er6 weight is only 19kg. M10 capacity is at least 200kg. So don’t worry. You are fine managing just 20kg. Did you measure periodic error in PHD2? 10 arcsec periodic error is too good to be true.

I push my big scope forward on my am5 it looks odd but tracks great, and less chance of hitting the tripod leg. if I use a steel tripod... even my c925 doesnt need a counterweight on the am5 and I get around 0.5 to 0.7 tracking. The only possible issue with weight is the tripod could basically fall over.... but it would be fine with the eq6 tripod.... its really a POSSIBLE isssue for the am5 carbon tripod if you dont use a counterweight with a heavier scope it doesnt need balancing because of its centre of gravity and central way the gear works.... simile its like standing on the middle of a see saw.... the gear works inside another ring gear not driving a belt or spur gear at the side.... there are no spur gears, belts or any notable distance on the gear train., there is no worm strain or gearing (like a traditional german eq) ....therefore it cant put strain on the motor or cause movement in the gears per se like an out of balance tradition eq mount can therefore balancing isnt needed at all.... and its so much lighter

I am impressed that your tracking was sub 1" despite having such a poor polar alignment.

Very cool 👍

I discovered something during hypertuning my cgem ii. The brass worm and motor transfer brass gears are not PERFECTLY round... I think this is common knowledge.... it creates the "wa wa wa" sound when slewing either dec or ra. it can be helped by allowing a tiny gap between motor and worm gear.... but I found that the INSIDE of the gear makes a bigger issue to the "roundness" hence also noise. The gear isnt absolutely tight on the shaft.... so when tightening the grub screws... the gear is even more non circular (I tested this with a laser. However I solved this by drilling holes opposite the grub screws and self tapping 2 more grub screws meaning There are now 4 to tighten. In small increments tightening all and testing each time,... like aligning a polar scope, it really helps to both make the gear more circular and takes out tiny "wobbles" (often the gear isnt absolutely straight so it helps this also) My mount is so much quieter now.... with no "wa wa wa" sound". This can help get the worm closer too without straining the motor... hence lessening backlash a little. Also, itcan actually help keep a constant voltage and speed. Mostly though it immensly helps with the noise. As far as backlash Ive found in my personal case thats down to the worm itself and incorrect bearing tightening (and the worm isnt completely perfectly round either) , both on the shaft bearings and the worm housing bearings tightening does help a lot. Ive got my cgem ii with the tiniest backlash now and the dec, which matters more, has very good tracking compared to what it was. and really no backlash to speak off. It might need adjustments over time to settle in.

Thanks very much. I was torn between the two. With your inpiut, I wil oeder the 2600 tomorrow. Cheers.

Amp glow is reason enough not to get the 294. I got sick and tired of dealing with the 294's amp glow in post-processing, which I couldn't always eliminate with calibration frames. The 294's amp glow is the main reason I upgraded to the 2600. Well, not exactly--I upgraded to a Risingcam IMX571, which costs significantly less than the 2600 but has the same sensor and works like a champ. Note, however, that if you have an ASIAir, the Risingcam won't work with it. Neither will the ASIAir work with any other non-ASI product such as Esatto or Moonlite focusers, QHY cameras, etc., etc.

2023 M 8 AGUSTUS = 8 SYA'BAN 9 SEPTEMBER = 9 RAMADHAN 10 OKTOBER = 10 SYAWAL 1444 H

Hello, can you tell me what is the difference between ASI 2600MC Duo vs ASI 2600 MC Pro Color.!?? Thank you.!!!

Thanks for the video. I've been using an EQ6-R Pro for three years. After adjusting the belts, the end play of the worm gears and the backlash I have gotten good guiding as long as the atmosphere cooperates. I've had guiding under 0.4" (rare) but with good seeing it is usually between 0.5 and 0.6. With bad seeing it goes up to 0.7 or 0.8. So, the atmospheric conditions really dictate how good my guiding is. Good polar alignment helps a lot. I haven't taken the mount apart but one day I will and remove the old grease and replace with good grease etc etc. thanks, Monty