Atik Cameras

Author Topic: Titan Testing  (Read 12923 times)

riklaunim

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Titan Testing
« on: April 28, 2012, 06:56:31 pm »
I'm testing a lot of equipment lately for my "planetary" book. Among cameras I have Atik Titan mono. It's not a typical "planetary" camera but it's also advertised as such. It seems that DS cam makers don't get the requirements for "planetary" cameras. A guider is not equal to planetary camera.

So at start something very bright, Sun in H-alpha from a 35 mm Lunt:





Now that works very well. It's very bright so the histogram is easily filled.


Now planets, a hard target, Saturn at f/20 with C11. ORGB image (Orange longpass as luminance) to make it look decent:


The orange channel:


That was all captured in Nebulosity. In Artemis Capture with the "fast" 15 FPS mode frame quality ended up very bad: http://i50.tinypic.com/ie2tfd.jpg (and it's underexposed as we can't use long exposures for planetary imaging).

It may look like Saturn but the actual efficiency of that camera was/is very low. 16-bit low gain cameras aren't good for planetary imaging as there is no exposure time to fill the histogram, and the framerate is limited by sending overgrown numbers. I was using 0,1 - 0,2 sec exposures with Atik Titan, and 0,03 sec exposures with DMK21AU618 operating at 8-bit + with higher gain (and better sensitivity of ICX618).

To overexpose red channel in Titan I would have to use more than 1 sec exposures: http://i47.tinypic.com/vx2s9l.jpg which is insanity ;) while for a DMK it looks like so (orange channel, lower gain in this case): http://i47.tinypic.com/2ldhxy9.jpg

Just after Titan recording I made some f/20 and even f/30 Saturn images using DMK21AU618. Here are f/30 examples (captured at 30 FPS, 30 ms exp. Orange and ORGB):


The seeing was very good in both cases. So if you want a real planetary camera you need to... think different  ;D
C11 - TSAPO65 - Atik 314L+ - DMK21AU618 - HEQ5...

riklaunim

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Re: Titan Testing
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2012, 05:20:32 pm »
And a guide star finding comparison - for that it works nicely :)
C11 - TSAPO65 - Atik 314L+ - DMK21AU618 - HEQ5...

bwa

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Re: Titan Testing
« Reply #2 on: April 29, 2012, 10:46:31 pm »
Nice Saturn images!  I'd be happy with even the top two images.  You must have a fairly stable atmosphere?

bwa

riklaunim

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Re: Titan Testing
« Reply #3 on: April 30, 2012, 11:05:14 am »
At that night it was very good. DMK allowed to do even f/30 images (which is very rare for Saturn). All those 16-bit low gain cams aren't good for such imaging ;)
C11 - TSAPO65 - Atik 314L+ - DMK21AU618 - HEQ5...