First light with a ZWO ASI 120mm

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JimLafferty

First light with a ZWO ASI 120mm

Post by JimLafferty »

Hi Folks--
With the Grasshopper 3 in the shop for repair I picked up this little camera to play with in the meantime---I was curious about it after reading Damien Peach's review in the UK's "Astronomy Now" magazine. Evidently this camera is becoming fairly popular with the planetary imagers. Its relatively "cheap" at abt $328.00 US. I tried some higher res shots but ran into some nasty Newtons Rings that I didnt feel like fiddlying with today.
This is a USB 2 camera with a CMOS chip. It connects and operates with either Sharpcap or Firecapture. It can capture in either 8 bit avi's or 16 bit ser files (when using Firecapture 2.3 beta). It has fairly small pixels (3.75 microns) with a pixel array of 1280 x 960. It captures 35 FPS in 8bit or 15 FPS in 16 bit at full resolution. Noise seems fairly low---The images below were taken with the Lunt 100 DS. Best 251 frames out of 1525 total. They are both from a 16 bit ser file. A .5 Antares reducer was used to get the full disk in one capture.

Jim





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Re: First light with a ZWO ASI 120mm

Post by sullij1 »

Thanks Jim. I was wondering about this one. Looks like it has potential for us folks on the low end pay scales. Can't wait to see what else it can do in the hands of an experienced imager. CMOS is working hard to catch up.

Best,

Joe Jim ;) :lol:


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Re: First light with a ZWO ASI 120mm

Post by MapleRidge »

Hi Jim

Very nice first light for the camera....looks promising for some of the newer CMOS chips.

Brian


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Re: First light with a ZWO ASI 120mm

Post by marktownley »

That's a great result Jim, it's just a shame of the troubles with Newtons rings though at higher mags...


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Re: First light with a ZWO ASI 120mm

Post by Derek Klepp »

Thanks Jim it may be a good camera at a low price for outreach ventures.


Michel

Re: First light with a ZWO ASI 120mm

Post by Michel »

Hi Jim
belles images de notre soleil :thumbsup:
Michel


colmic

Re: First light with a ZWO ASI 120mm

Post by colmic »

Thank you Jim for this Test.

To see the potential of this camera, and to see the noise, you should force the gamma on the deep sky to see the noise. In your image, black is too black to see the noise, and faint proms could vanish.

But this is for sure a excellent image.


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Re: First light with a ZWO ASI 120mm

Post by solar »

Not too bad Jim. I played with Fire Capture tonight with the ZWO 120MM and confirm the 15fps at 16 Bits. Will try on the sun tomorrow if possible. Looks like it will produce a fine mosaic at 16 Bit. The camera price for result puts it way up there for most of the guys. I was always pretty impressed with it although I have mostly only used it on the proms. Also the newton rings can be sorted by tilting or flats. They really have not presented me with too much of a problem.


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Re: First light with a ZWO ASI 120mm

Post by Montana »

A very nice full disc :bow: :bow: :bow:

Alexandra


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Re: First light with a ZWO ASI 120mm

Post by raylal »

Beautiful job with that new camera Jim.

Ray


Have a sunny clear day !



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Re: First light with a ZWO ASI 120mm

Post by swisswalter »

Hi Jim

that camera is a fine price/performance choice


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