First Light testing the new Apollo M-MAX camera from Player One Astronomy

[solarchat]

Sean Wang of Player One Astronomy sent over one of their Apollo M Max cameras designed and marketed specifically for Solar Astronomy (it's about time someone did this).
Here are some images showing the best 10% of frames from 1000 frame .avi files captured at 135fps in Firecapture and then stacked in Lynkeos and processed in Photoshop and Topaz all using my ancient 2013 iMac.

The monochrome images are before any processing and straight from Lynkeos.

I really like this camera.

First Light Ha Apollo M max.jpg (987.93 KiB) Viewed 1138 times

First light Ha 2 Apollo M-max.jpg (405.77 KiB) Viewed 1138 times

First Light CaK proms Apollo M max.jpg (517.66 KiB) Viewed 1138 times

First Light CaK Apollo M max.jpg (324.41 KiB) Viewed 1138 times

I'm thinking about making this the "official camera of the Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project"

Apollo M-MAX first light in Halpha and CaK.mov

(67.87 MiB) Downloaded 53 times

[solarchat]

I was especially impressed with the dynamic range of this camera as it captured the faint prominences in calcium K. These cameras sell for $599 which is less than 1/3 the price of my point Grey grasshopper express.
They also work on Macs or PCs which is an enormous plus.

[EGRAY_OBSERVATORY]

I'll have to get my head around how to open these Steven, but thanks in advance for sharing..

Terry

[solarchat]

How to open them? the images should be embedded in the post, no?

[solarchat]

7CEAA7E3-01CC-4FCD-86D0-D1CEBE6EE905.jpeg (4.13 MiB) Viewed 1216 times

5FE931C8-4E03-4372-913B-EBCFE69B3BD0.jpeg (3.21 MiB) Viewed 1216 times

6C932128-E2B1-431C-9073-1148019D5368.jpeg (2.61 MiB) Viewed 1216 times

[nfotis]

How to open them? the images should be embedded in the post, no?

it seems that TIFF files aren't working correctly (Firefox/Windows here, but tried also with Chrome/Windows and Edge/Windows).

I see four file names, repeated (and a counter 'seen 74 times'), but nothing active at the moment which I can click on.

N.F.

[MapleRidge]

Hi Stephen...

Your images certainly show the potential for the camera!!!

I was able to open the images by right clicking and open to a new window and select a program to open them in...in Windows/Firefox at least.

Brian

[rsfoto]

How to open them? the images should be embedded in the post, no?

it seems that TIFF files aren't working correctly (Firefox/Windows here, but tried also with Chrome/Windows and Edge/Windows).

I see four file names, repeated (and a counter 'seen 74 times'), but nothing active at the moment which I can click on.

N.F.

Hi,

NO browser at all can open TIFF images.

The trick here is to right click on them and choose " Open Image in New Tab " and windows will propose with which program if you have a software capable of reading TIFF images ...

[DeepSolar64]

Are these cameras CCD or CMOS?

[MoonPrince]

Those are JPG file of Stephen's images.

First Light CaK Apollo M max.jpg (151.85 KiB) Viewed 1156 times

First Light CaK proms Apollo M max.jpg (208.16 KiB) Viewed 1156 times

First Light Ha Apollo M max.jpg (310.01 KiB) Viewed 1156 times

First light Ha 2 Apollo M-max.jpg (201.66 KiB) Viewed 1156 times

[Carbon60]

Nice images, Stephen.

Stu.

[solarchat]

Sorry about that, folks. ETFs open fine in Safari. thanks for posting them in JPEG.
I’ll post JPEG’s next time.

[Montana]

These are great images Stephen looks like these cameras will give ZWO a bit of a competition

Alexandra

[EGRAY_OBSERVATORY]

Thanks Stephen and as already suggested, the images sizes and TIFF format is probably the reason for not embedding.

They certain are now embedded and thanks for sharing

Terry

[rigel123]

That camera has huge pixels! What scope did you image with for those disk shots?

[rsfoto]

Are these cameras CCD or CMOS?

Hi James,

They are all CMOS hips

https://player-one-astronomy.com/produc ... ar-camera/

[rsfoto]

These are great images Stephen looks like these cameras will give ZWO a bit of a competition

Alexandra

Hi,

Sure as Sean Wang, the owner of Player One Astronomy, was a former collaborator of ZWO and then went away and there were a lot of gossips afterwards as usual

[DeepSolar64]

Are these cameras CCD or CMOS?

Hi James,

They are all CMOS chips

https://player-one-astronomy.com/produc ... ar-camera/

CMOS. I would have guessed CCD. It seems most of the hard-core solar imagers prefer CCD over CMOS because of lower noise in the images.

[rsfoto]

Are these cameras CCD or CMOS?

Hi James,

They are all CMOS chips

https://player-one-astronomy.com/produc ... ar-camera/

CMOS. I would have guessed CCD. It seems most of the hard-core solar imagers prefer CCD over CMOS because of lower noise in the images.

As far as I have heard or read CCD production is dying and so the CCD chips are getting more and more expensive.

I even think that quite some time ago this was discussed here.


https://www.stemmer-imaging.com/en/news ... of-an-era/

https://www.dpreview.com/articles/55307 ... deathknell

[rsfoto]

... prefer CCD over CMOS because of lower noise in the images.

Hi James,

IMHO people are obsessed with very short exposures time and therefor they crank up the Gain and Gain is known to introduce noise. I use an exposure time of around 45 to 50 ms and always at 0 gain.

One disadvantage of CMOS sensors is that they have a noise signature which means the noise is always the same pattern in each image while in CCD sensors the noise is random ...

A few years I was talking At NEAF show with one camera developer from QHY company and he explained me a lot about the CMOS sensors but OK this is the advancing technology and the ones who takes decisions perhaps do not image at all and everything is theoretical.

Again IMHO ...

[DeepSolar64]

Rainer,
It seems everything is going to CMOS, DSLRs, mirrorless cameras, etc. I always thought the ZWO cameras did great and they are CMOS. But I am an absolute green newbie at solar imaging. What do I know...

James