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I'm looking at potentially replacing my QSI CCD camera with something, shall we say...less...1992. Okay, so maybe it's not that out of date, but..... Anyway, I've been looking at everything from ZWO ASI294mm and ASI533 to the various versions of cameras with the Sony IMX571 sensor. Seems like every manufacturer now has mono versions of the IMX571 cameras, but the prices range wildly - from over $4kUS down to (on sale) $1,200US. Since budget is a factor, I see the Toup Tek ATR3CMOS26000KMA and various rebrands consistently around $1,500US. I'd like to hear from folks who have used or are using the Toup Tek or rebrands, what your opinions are, good, bad, or indifferent. Specifically, I'd like to hear about
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! |
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| Mine is a 533 equivalent from Altair Astro. Build is pretty good and the camera is properly supported by native drivers by APT and NINA (the two I use). Mine has an IR/UV window and I can't find anything wrong with it, no odd reflection or similar. I've tested at around 35 below ambient and works a treat. Unfortunately my climate (very wet) isn't very conductive to steep temperature reductions as dewing tends to occurs, which is my only beef with this camera but I keep it outside all the time under a cover with the rest of the gear and that can lead to these issues. Can't say much about customer support as I never had the need to ask for support. When I''ll buy my IMX571 camera that would be directly from the likes of ToupTek or equivalent, no doubt about it. |
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I have a mallincam imx571 and have been using it for 1.5 yrs. Touptek makes them but with a higher grade sensor and without the IR window. It cools to -20 in under a minute and uses far less power than my IMX533 from zwo. Mine is also vacuum sealed. The only drawback is the 17.5mm backfocus that cannot be changed unlike the zwo version which is only 6.5mm. Its been a great camera and has seen a lot of sky. |
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I use an uncooled Toup Tek camera with a different sensor (IMX178 mono). I've had it for about a year and it has become my workhorse for both DS and planetary imaging. It's mechanically solid, well-machined and well put together and I've had no issues. It's supported natively in NINA and the manufacturer also provides ASCOM drivers that I've used successfully with SharpCap. The free ToupSky program from the manufacturer is really handy for planetary imaging, giving a good frame rate, arbitrary sensor cropping and SER output files. Overall I've found it to be a solid performer at a good price. |
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I have two ToupTek IMX571, one is mono and one is color, i think i tested the color and it is really nice, just the filter ruined the results and also my bad processing, so the camera is great, and about the mono, i was off mood for over 6 months so i didn't give the mono a chance to try, but i will do soon hopefully, i might just use the mono with one filter either Ha or Lum and post the results so people can see the initial performance or quality of the camera. I bought both cameras with AR windows, giving me more flexibility, as i also do planetary imaging and i have filters that can be beyond IR or UV, so better to have freedom of bandwidth, with IR cut it is almost like using a DSLR camera. Welcome to the ToupTek IMX571 club either mono or color. |
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I own RisingStar mono/color versions of the Touptec camera, looks like a 100% clone of the ToupTec to me. I really like is the price and the performance / build quality of both versions, for me a nobrainer to buy them instead of the more expensive versions from ZWO amd QHY. There are from what I found out only two areas where you need to doublecheck and both are closely related to ZWO accessories. One thing to check is if you need to use the new big ZWO OAG together with a ZWO filter wheel. The Problem with the OAG is that ZWO designed it in a way that it re-uses the tilt-plate of your ZWO camera to connect to your telescope, by removing the plate from your ZWO camera the backfocus of the camera actually reduces to 12.5mm compared to the 17.5mm the RisingStar/ToupTec has. This means that you cannot reach 55mm backfocus when you want to use both the ZWO Filter Wheel and the large OAG because the minimal backfocus in this case will be 60mm. However, the small OAG from ZWO will work fine together with the ZWO Filter wheel and the Touptec/Risingstar camera. The other (rather minor) problem is that both the ZWO Filter Wheel and the Camera do have threads to connect so it is not straightforward to attach the camera so that the orientation of the long side of the sensor is parallel to the flat bottom of the Filter wheel. The problem can easily be solved by adding thin spacers between the camera and the Filter Wheel until the camera is positioned right and then to add the additional spacers required for correct backfocus in another place like behind the flattener. Just make sure you have a nice collection of 0.1 0.15 mm spacers. Thr big plus point of having threads is that you can easily remove the camera from your image train to clean the sensor or to use it in a hyperstar configuration. When you order you should ask if your vendor sells the version with the industrial sensor or not. I think this is only relevant for the mono sensor and the industrial grade sensor has little better specs, but if this an urban legend or not I cannot tell. Risingstar told me that they sell the industrial spec version. I bought my cameras with the AR glass and so far have no issues with reflections, and halo issues do only exist with my 3nm Antlia Sii filter, but likely here the filter is to blame. Cooling is more in the range of -30 to -35 below ambient, I can create Darks with -10° at room temperature which is enough for me. I replaced all fans with quiter fans with less vibration, so I may have lost a little cooling performce by doing this. I use Nina for capture and in the last year I have only lost one single frame (it was half black) because of connectivity, so no issues in this area. Customer service from Risingstar is good and responsive, usually answers come within a few hours, but so far I had no serious issues so I cannot say how the process works when it is necessary to ship back a camera. Michael |
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I have one of the knock-offs IMX571 from aliexpress color camera. I have two issues: Α. Once in a while it generates a completely problematic sub. Look at the two consecutive subs below of IC1396, both 240sec, @-10C, 500gain/ 1000offset (but it does it at any gain/offset) B. even the normal sub has some horizontal lines. I would like to hear from fellow astrophotographers if their ZWO/QHY 2600 has similar horizontal lines or if this is a result of the cheaper clones. normal sub (IC1396 240sec @ -10C, 500g, 1000offset)  problematic sub:  |
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Tareq Abdulla: I think to buy a imx571 camera in color version with UV-IR cut filter: I can’t find the chart now, but the transmittance between 650 and 680 nm where above 90%, and cut quite to 0 above the 750 nm. Usually a DSLR camera has about 20% of transmittance on H alpha |
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Michael Ring: Do you have a pic? |
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| https://www.astrobin.com/full/1de9y7/0/ The two bright stars in the pic have some halo that comes from the Sii Filter. Here's one of the stars from a single 10min sub: Bildschirmfoto 2022-11-14 um 15.04.26.png |
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Matteo Beretta:Tareq Abdulla: Doesn't matter, AR window is AR window, giving me better flexibility over IR cut one, i prefer to use the filter than having it always permanently there on the sensor. |
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| Do you use the filter screwed directly onto the camera or a wit a filter wheel (if you use other filters too like dual narrowband)? |
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Cosmetatos: That's some serious noise. The only time I've ever had a similar issue with any camera (I don't have an IMX571 sensor camera - yet), was when the data cable was inadvertently bound with an unshielded power cable. Wasted a perfectly clear night trying to figure that one out. Cosmetatos: I've never seen checkerboarding like that before. Have you contacted support? |
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Cosmetatos: I’ve had this “ problematic “ sub lots. More times than I can count and it always happens when I’m doing a heavy process(like stacking) when the sub downloads. Horizontal banding, every camera has it and some people experience it worse than others. |
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Matthew Proulx: Thanks -- is there a solution about it? sometimes it shows in the stretched stacked image... |
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Matteo Beretta: It depends on the setup, for example i am using those two IMX571 cameras for my both 90mm triplets with reducers, i place the mount on the reducer mount ring that it came with, it says from the store: "Features an integrated M48x0.75 / 2" filter thread" So i use this for now, later if i will change the scope or use the camera with something else then i can think about something, i do have a filter drawer just in case if i have to use that, and my filter wheels are only for my smaller sensor size cameras. |
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Michael Ring: Nice Jellyfish pic!! My friend linked me his Amtilla Sii (3nm) filters and it was perfect no halo, but he has the 2600 camera. So maybe yours is the camera or flattener/reducer combo. |
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Martin Palenik:Michael Ring: I was lucky enough to buy Optolong SII 3nm 2" when it has a discount offer price, from what i read this filter also no halo, but i didn't test it yet, i just go with whatever cheaper as long the performance or quality are almost the same. |
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| Thanks, there can be tons of reasons for the halo, I have a 5nm version of the Antlia Sii filter but so far did not feel like opening the filter wheel again as the halo is only visible on very bright stars. |
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Cosmetatos: For the first example, are you using the high gain switch at all or just increasing the gain value? I've also experienced the horizontal lines, they are non-fixed pattern noise that shows up in my autofocus exposures and bias frames at low gain on the camera (both mono and color version). Flipping the high gain switch mostly removes them. I can attest to the strange "weird sub" effect. I've had bad subs with the risingcam 571c exactly twice, both times I was experimenting with using NINA's Pixinsight tools to livestack. |
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| I have a Touptek cooled mono 571 camera. It's been extremely good, cools down well (I limit my cooldown and warmup rates to 7K/min but it will go faster than this if you take off the limits) and images very nicely. There was some research posted on cloudynights a while back regarding optimum gain settings that concluded that in either low or high gain mode gain 100 was optimum: I use this and have had zero problems with banding or checkerboarding. It plays nicely with INDI (can't comment on ASCOM) and integrates well with the ZWO 7x36mm unmounted filter EFW. Also works well with AstroDMX capture. I haven't got it to work with FireCapture yet but Torsten did send me a message with some suggestions, seems like it may be a question of my setup or installing the latest SDK from Touptek; I haven't had time to do anything about it yet though. The 17.5mm backfocus hasn't been an issue for me, I'm using it with a Skywatcher 150PDS and Baader MPCC upstream of the filter wheel and it still requires M48 spacer rings. |
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For the first example, are you using the high gain switch at all or just increasing the gain value? High gain value - not sure if correct or not Adrian Knagg-Baugh: Thank you for the suggestion, I will try this and see how it goes. Do you get the feel that my subs are particularly noisy, or is it similar to what you get? (before dark subtraction) |
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I have a Lacerta DeepSkyPro 2600c (replacement for my ZWO ASI 294MC Pro) and I'm completely satisfied with it. No amp glow like the ASI had (IMX294 sensor). I use it under Linux Ubuntu 22.04 with KStars/Ekos/INDI and it works like a charm. For normal Deep Sky imaging I use High Conversion Gain mode with gain 100 and offset 160, and for very bright objects Low Conversion Gain with gain 100 and offset 160 to take advantage of the higher full well capacity. Regards, Bernd |
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Cosmetatos:For the first example, are you using the high gain switch at all or just increasing the gain value? I'm not sure on the sub evaluation, but based on the gain/read noise curve, the camera doesn't experience a large drop in read noise by increasing the gain - only by applying the high gain switch. See: https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Hcf93f6e44a7447559ccdcee5bccacd09k.png https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/H8d0dd002341b4ff0bb710ab3b12ba2b5S.png |
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See: Thanks for the tables - so if I read it correctly, best is Gain 100 and HCG as it manages both low read noise (second graph) and high dynamic range? What about 150 or 200 gain (lower read noise) and slightly lower dynamic range? |
