OK; whatever works for you. ZWO specifies the cameras as good for exposures as short as 32 microseconds, which is a lot shorter than 3 seconds. I think this thread has reached its conclusion, so I

Hello all, I am seeing more discussions about these and I honestly have not understood all of it. I would appreciate an explanation that would be understood by someone who is not an engineer, but not

The issue is not the length of time for the flat for flat purposes. The issue is that it is my understanding that the CMOS camera itself should not ever have an exposure less than three seconds. I

The only goal with flats is to get an illuminated frame from an evenly-lit light source, where the histogram is a nice hump centered at the %50 point. It doesn't have to be perfectly nailed at 50%. in

The 3 second rule I have seen is from multiple posts as I go through comments on issues. I generally try to get the benefit of common experiences and comments whether I totally understand them or

You may need to have a longer exposure time for flats because LED light panels adjust their brightness via PWM. If the shutter speed of the camera is quicker than what the panel is being driven at for

I routinely use 0.5s to 5s flats. You just need to match flat darks (darks the same length as your flats) at the same gain value. Calibration has never been an issue on my 1600.

I don't understand what's magic about 3 seconds. ZWO specifies an exposure range of 32μs-2000s for the '1600 and the '294. I have seen no issues with flats exposed for less than 1 second with my

The problem is that you cannot use bias on a CMOS camera. Any exposure less than 3 seconds is not advisable (not an engineer so not sure why). So if you cannot use a bias frame on your flats you

I don't bother with darks for flats. The noise is small compared to a flat ADU of 20,000-40,000, so why subtract tiny noise from a very bright flat? PixInsight measures pixel brightness from 0 to 1.

Thanks Wayne and Mike. I use Nebulosity for pre-processing. The lowest I have gone on temp is -10C and in my backyard the lowest I can go in Texas is -5C. The ambient at 10pm is still above 30C and

I wasn’t clear, actually talking about the OSC ASI294. I like the 1600 also!

I run a 1600MM and have settled on cooling at either -15 or -10C, depending on the season. The amount of noise that is removed from the sensor by going colder than -15 is truly negligible. You can use

I agree.... Very nicely done, Robert. I have the same ASI1600MC Pro camera, and am very pleased with it. I'm still finding my way in PixInsight, which is a very powerful processing tool. I have had

Hi Robert, nice work. I have had trouble with getting good calibration. Some have said cooling is uneven and font go below -10. What is your calibration process and experience? Thanks, Wayne

I really like this CMOS camera. It is so sensitive. I added Ha I took with this OSC and it works well. I added the Ha in Photoshop in a Layer with a Linear Dodge Add mode with all color channels. I

John, I run an AP1200, computer, LED lights, camera and dome motors from a 12v nominal 100 AH LiPO4 battery. This is a solar powered system. The AP1200 power runs through a buck-boost regulator

Like Dale, I also run a Bioenno LiFePO4 battery. Picked up several when they had a 20% off coupon running a while back. They are far and away superior to a SLA or AGM battery in all respects. To

Dale, thank you very much for taking the time to explain that. I’m using an Astrozap dew heater. If you don’t mind, once I get the specs together on all my equipment, I’d like to communicate

Hey, a mostly mobile imager here with a Mach1. LFP (a shorter term for LiFePO4) batteries are, in a word, magic. They're 1/3-1/2 the weight of an equivalent Pb-acid or AGM battery and far-surpass the