First round of images from the ASI294MM pro

We have had some great weather down here in south Texas the last few weeks so I was able to get a lot of use out of the new 294mm. Really have nothing but love for the 294. The images speak for themselves. Here are a few that I was able to capture in SHO, each one between 8-10 hours of integration.

I have notices some interesting color over the 1600mm after my initial SHO combinations and enhancing them has been easy. This camera will be my workhorse for the foreseeable future and I’m super excited to see how galaxies start coming out soon. Next thing I will be testing will be the 294mm with a combination of Ha and LRGB astronomic deep sky filters on andromeda and horsehead. Stay tuned!

ASI294mm pro VS ASI1600mm pro

So the asi294mc pro was my first astronomy camera and for a beginner at the time, it was a great camera. I have since moved on to shooting monochrome images and the asi1600mm pro has been really the been my workhorse for my imaging. Recently ZWO released the asi294mm pro so I decided to give it a try. It is a 12 megapixel camera vs a 16 megapixel like the 1600 but pixels are bigger allowing the 294 the gather more signal before blowing out bright objects like stars. It is also supposed to have close to a 90 percent quantum efficiency vs 60 percent on the 1600 so its is picking up 30 percent more signal in the same amount of time. After battling some clouds over a few nights, I was finally able to get enough data to make a comparison.

The top image is the 1600 and that is 60x180 second exposures calibrated and stacked. The bottom image is the 294, 21x600 second images calibrated and stacked. I think both look good but if I get in close, I can see more detail in the fainter nebulosity on the asi294mm-pro. Also the contrast from the signal to background is really sharp. All in all, Im happy with the camera so far and looking forward to finishing tadpole and showing off the final results. Stay tuned!