I think the mono vs OSC never ending debate should be viewed differently. There is no doubt that a mono camera will on paper thrash an OSC camera in terms of overall quality (and yes there are some great OSC images on Astrobin) but when you have limited amount of time due to bad weather the OSC will have a slight upper hand. Some astrophotographers just want to take decent images so the OSC wins (basically think of a point and shoot simple camera in full auto mode), and some astrophotographers want to pixel peep (they want to print their price winning image on a giant billboard)... so the mono wins there.
Hey there Stephane! - I agree mate, there's definitely no one-size fits all solution to the debate! :-) I do enjoy making these comparisons as it's just interesting for me to see the results from all this wonderful gear being used and compared, my hope is that people watch them and just enjoy them for what they are like you have done - just general real-world comparisons of two common types of rigs & approaches :-) Thank you for taking the time to watch and comment my friend!
Hi Luke. Great comparison video. It shows everyone new to astronomy and astrophotography as well as seasoned Astrophotographers what is possible between two completely different setups. Agreed with all you said about the richness of the RASA signal compared to the clean and sharper Esprit signal. The final images look great and most of us would be happy to produce either one of them, both are equally fine pictures to me. Keep up the great content and clear skies.
Hey Jon! - Aw mate, thank you so much for that! I'm really pleased you found some enjoyment in this comparison, I have a lot of fun doing these kind of videos as I enjoy seeing what the different gear is capable of - it's something I've always found interesting! :-) I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend buddy! All the best, Luke
Excellent video as ever Luke. The results you’re producing with the Uranus C are astonishing for an uncooled camera. Based largely on your previous videos I ordered the camera plus the active cooling attachment. You were right on the money re customer service. Seamless transaction and arrived eight days later as promised. I’ve only had the quickest of tests with it but even just ten minutes on the Elephant Trunk the other night has shown it has great potential. Keep the quality content coming and clear skies!
Hey there Stuart!! - that's fantastic news, I'm so happy to hear you've yourself the Uranus-C 👍👍 I'm confident you'll enjoy it as much as I have, it's a really wonderful camera and I genuinely don't have a bad word to say about it! :-) Can't wait to hear how you get along with it when you have the chance for a good session out under the stars with the cam, enjoy it my friend! Clear skies! P. S, if you have any questions about it, fire away! I'll help if I can :-)
Thank you Stephen!! It'd be nice to have a mono kit for the RASA for sure, but it's SO expensive to get those filters, ouch!! I appreciate you watching! :-)
Thank you David!! - I really agree mate, her data came out jaw-droppingly clean after processing was done! :-D She's better at this game than I am!! I appreciate you watching mate!
I don’t understand what’s being compared, apart from the results themselves. Telescopes, cameras and filters are completely different. To say that this is about OSC vs monochrome is not correct, IMHO.
Hey Victor! - in the video I do take the time to indicate that this is not intended as a fair and pure scientific comparison, but rather as a real world demonstration of two pretty typical approaches to deep sky imaging, which it does very well I'd say. Im sorry you didn't like this one mate!
Thanks Anthony!! It's a wonderful bit of kit for the price, really amazing that we are able to even make these kind of comparisons and it be competitive at all! :-D I appreciate you watching and taking the time to comment mate, as always! :-) Hope you have a great weekend!
I started out with a 533mc but really considering a mono investment. Some sharpness differences in your comparison can be mostly attributed to the OTA differences, but really liked it. The mono sensor data just looks cleaner.
Hey Tiago! - I'm really happy to hear this was some use to you my friend, there's definitely some advantages to mono when pure image quality is the goal! :-) Thanks for watching!
Nice video. I recently had to send my asi294 mm out for repairs so I got back on my 294 mc. I got better in getting sho look . The improvements made in the last year are impressive as far as processing in pixinsight. My Rosette came out really nice.
Good video,….keeping in mind the mono one has about the double of integration time I find the color image really holding up. I wonder what a third solution would look like: merging a color shot from a color camera (for the color) with a luminance shot from a mono camera (for the resolution)
Superb video Luke, I often wondered why the oiii data ( using the L extreme and a 294c colour camera) seemed to be inn the green channel I knew it had to be oiii as the ha was completely different so I used it in my hoo images. Great information pal 👍
Thanks for watching Steve mate!! I'm glad the video was of some use to you, I'm genuinely happy to hear that! :-) Hope you have a great weekend my friend!
Hey Luke! brilliantly presented as always mate! I reckon If you have limited capture time and post mainly on social the RASA OSC combo is an absolute beast for this purpose (with the usual caveats regarding collimation and dew control) and if you want to produce large prints the pixel scale and lack of central obstruction definitely does seem to give finer detail and noticeably tighter stars when zoomed in with the Esprit mono combo. It would be cool to switch the cameras for the second halve of testing to see how that effects things but easier said than done when your making videos on a weekly basis, and you would also need to swap out peripheries like the ASI Air of course. Have a gooden mate and clear skies! : )
Hey Chris!! Great to hear from you mate :-) I couldn't have expressed it better myself re: the difficulties of swapping the test around, I'll have to see if I can cook something up in the future but for now I've still had a lot of fun doing these comparisons of "rig A vs rig B" kind of thing, even if they do seem to rile some folk lol - no matter, you can never please everybody I guess! Thanks so much for watching and giving your thoughts matey, I do very much appreciate it! Clear skies!
Thank you Luke! Great side by side comparison of the 2 setups. I loved both images in their different ways. I was actually thinking of putting on the less expensive camera on a refractor but wondering what if you had reversed the setup 🤓🤓. I have a 9.25 edgeHD with the ASI533MC PRO but thinking of getting a refractor with the less expensive camera. Love your content!
Thank you Peter!! That's really great to hear my friend :-) It'd be nice to make that kind of comparison someday, with the cameras swapped over - I'd need to get f2 capable narrowband filters though to really make it work, which is one heck of an investment of cash, haha! - I think your idea of the refractor paired with a cheaper camera could be a lot of fun by the way, good luck!! :-) Clear skies!
Great video Luke !! I use a zwo 294 mc pro and the l extreme filter with a refractor. I think for most targets this works really well but for the faint nebulas like say the lion nebula probably a mono set up with the additional sensitivity is better. I personally just like the OSC set up for ease of use and speed. As always really good watch mate 👍
Hey Paul! - Ah you and me both mate, I really do love the ease of use from OSC cameras! :-) It'd have to be some camera to force me back mono these days! Thanks for watching buddy!
I was really impressed by the performance of the RSA/OSC couple, and I can see the advantage in speed over the Esprit/MM camera, especially during the summer season and the short astronomical darkness... as an Esprit120 owner myself 🙂 Although to be honest, rather than speed, I'm more looking at weight and practicality now. A lot easier to find the motivation to get a redcat rig out instead of the bulky Esprit! Yet another great video Luke, appreciate this format with raw one to one comparison of different rigs results, gives a real sense of what to expect from the scopes (leaving processing skills out of the equation of course!) Cheers
Thank you so much Sebastian, I am really happy to hear you've enjoyed the comparison for what it is 🙂- I find it really interesting to make these side-by-side vids as I'm often simply answering questions that I wonder about myself and sharing the results! I 100% hear you about the practicality and motivation aspect, I reckon without my observatory I'd be looking to downsize my own equipment for regular use as it can be a huge PITA to setup a big rig for only a few hours! Thank you again for watching and commenting!
@@lukomatico congrats on the observatory btw mate! Genuinely happy for you 😊 but don’t burn yourself out, we will always be looking forward to your new videos, even if you decrease the pace or try different formats!
One of the biggest factors for star size is the obstruction size, cassigrain scopes will usually have bigger stars than a newt or refractor as they usually have a big obstruction, they do however reduce the bigger the mirror is. This is one of the reasons I stuck with a newt as refractor wasn’t enough aperture for me at a reasonable price
Hi! Thanks for all your great videos :) I was wondering if you could maybe show us, at some point, a photo from the Esprit combined with the Uranus-C to see if the 2 could work well together?
Thanks Serra! - I'll have to do that comparison at some point for sure yeah, it seems a lot of people would like to see that! Thank you for watching :-)
Great comparison Luke! Have you tried combining the 2 data sets to see what the result would be? I think that would be an interesting addition. Clear skies!
Thanks mate!! That would be interesting to do, I've not actually tried doing that with this data yet - thanks for the suggestion!! :-) I appreciate you watching and commenting man, thanks again!
You got to know the astrophotography crowd is a tough one. I found your comparison of cameras, scopes and filters interesting. I don't know how much of a OSC vs Mono it was. I think a real comparison would be a cooled OSC camera on the APO, then then an equal size cooled mono camera with filters on the same APO is the only way you could have a fair OSC vs Mono comparison. However, with that said, I still enjoyed the video. Keep 'em coming 😁.
Hey Mike! - You're not kidding mate, haha! :-D I agree that it's not a pure OSC vs MONO comparison only, but I do point that out during the video too. It's a lot of fun for me personally making these comparisons, but honestly they seem to wind people up the wrong way half the time which maybe shouldn't surprise me as it's such a divisive subject overall! I'm really relieved to hear you enjoyed the video overall my friend, genuinely I am happy about that! :-) Thanks so much for watching and sharing your thoughts, Clear skies!
The mono is just better and more useful in every area. If you can’t afford the mono with all the filters, just buy the camera and add filters later. You can do so much interesting and fun Astro stuff with just the mono camera.
Thanks for giving your opinion mate!! I appreciate you sharing it :-) I agree that mono is technically better, but that's not the whole story for some people I guess - there's definitely other factors to consider! Thanks for watching!
Luke, this is great analysis, thanks for sharing, I have a question about player One camera because is no cooled, I guess for every session you have to take your darks, can you share your one player workflow for capturing data one day if you can. Thanks
Thank you Antonio!! I'm very happy you liked the video my friend :-) Regarding dark frames, I don't use any with the player one! :-) it doesn't need them if you dither your exposures 👍 Hope that helps!!
Hi Luke great comparison of both images I did prefer the look of the Esprit maybe due to the colour separation but the RASA did hold its own well with the OSC camera, maybe I'll get to try out mono one day but this hobby is an expensive one although I have been lucky with some equipment that I own, I'm still happy to shoot OSC & as I use a RASA & changing filters would be a more mechanical affair I guess. Have you considered trying to shoot mono with your RASA8?
Hey Tich mate! - Completely hear ya pal, it's such an expensive game to be in and really mono only makes it moreso! I love what modern OSC can do so for me it's a no-brainer haha :-) RE: shooting mono with the RASA, i've considered it but put the idea aside as it'd cost a bomb to get the right narrowband filters to allow f2 imaging! Thanks for watching matey!
Thanks so much mate! - Thank you for the suggestion! I'll have to see about getting another astropc setup at some point to allow me to use the Uranus-C on the Esprit as so far we've tended to only use the ASIAIR on that rig for a long time! :-)
@@lukomatico right. I would also be super interested in a close up of the rasa filter draw and back focus train you’re using. I’m a former rasa user and the older ones were a mess. Always waiting for them to improve and get back in stock.
I have to admit, I've not tried a filter drawer on this thing yet! I've been using the Starizona filter holder camera adapter plate, which seems to be a great bit of kit overall but not convenient for when you want to change filters as you need to remove the whole camera - otherwise though I've been astonished by my rasa, absolutely zero issues thankfully 👍 Clear skies!
Surprised the difference in the Ha is so much. The Blue channel looks to have almost completely washed over any Red on the mono setup, you can see all the structures there lurking, but just don't push through. The more variance in the the dark structure at the top on the Rasa image gives a feeling of more depth, rather than just being a dark blob. Nice comparison though. Pacman is on my list for a revisit for a multi night at some point. The last time I shot it, it was only 1hr 44mins.
Hey Dave! - Hope you are doing well mate! :-) It's a tough one for me to compare but also very interesting (for me), there's things I like and dislike about both shots for sure, - as you say the mono OIII seems to be overpowering the mono HA in the image, that's an interesting point and I absolutely can't argue bud! I do seem to notice similarly as you mentioned about the rasa images feeling more deep, probably down to the amount of light these things grab I guess! I love both systems but I enjoy my RASA the most currently :-D Thanks so much for the feedback mate!
Even with binning, the speed of the RASA is still way faster. But even so, I would still pick the mono. The signal and seperation is just so much cleaner. Now a true mono VS OCS would be to get a set of f/2 narrowband filters! :D
Thanks so much Chris! The separation really is wonderful on the mono data with those discrete channels to work with for sure, that's a real advantage of mono - 100%! I'd love to make a true head-to-head comparison as fairly as possible one day but like you say, I'm gonna need some new gear to make that happen!! :-D Thanks for watching mate!
Mono definitely looking better and cleaner, but osc for me for nothing more than spending time out there. I don't put my shots online so for myself and my friends the osc is just fine. Keep up the good work my friend.
Hey Peter! - I agree mate, mono is definitely technically better, and yet I still love OSC haha! :-) Thanks so much for watching and weighing in my friend!
Interesting video. Would be interesting to see the exact same comparison, with the same target but swap the cameras on the scopes… (plus you could then do a true camera:camera comparison on each telescope too). Obviously that’s another 20+ hours of your time though 😜
Thanks so much Duncan! - It'd be interesting to try them swapped one day, but I'd need to buy new narrowband filters for the mono setup to shoot at f2 as the ones we have are only really any good down to f3.5-ish, expensive but probably very interesting! Thanks again mate :-) Clear skies!
Hi Luke . Very interesting comparisons . I'm still in awe of that Player-One Camera ! Do you follow James Lamb ? His 22Aug2022 video covers an interesting approach to colour mixing in PixInsight . I don't understand it but I know you will . Cheers./SRK
Hey Scott! - Thank you mate, I'm glad to hear you found the comparison interesting :-) I've just gone and found James and subscribed to his channel, I'll have to check it out properly sometime as it looks like he has a ton of good content! - Thanks for the heads up my friend! :-) Hope you have a great rest of the weekend man, Clear skies!
Hey mate! - It's being worked on still at the minute, they are taking time to refine the design which is really nice to see! :-) Really expecting big things from this cam!
Nice video, thought about going mono but most likely sticking with RGB , I dont think when zoomed out there is that much difference and the cost is crazy plus with sky's the way they are it would take forever to get data... BTW what part of England are you in. We have family in Reading
Thank you Steve! I totally agree with what you're saying mate, I very regularly use both osc and mono as you know, so for me I get to see the data differences all the time, and it's just not that dramatic of a change really, certainly not what people would have you believe anyway! They act like as soon as you get your mono camera the phone calls from NASA wanting to do research on your data start rolling in! 😅 Some folk really like to push for one way or the other for some reason, I personally just don't care - they both have their place, I just happen to have more fun with OSC! I'm from 'the north' btw mate, near Leeds 👍 Clear skies!
@@lukomatico Yea I was thinking of going into Mono but the filters are expensive and like I said the time you need .I dont see much difference in the final image, maybe a little ...Every person I show what I take love my images ... Once again thanks for the videos they really help , and if you ever want to try to collaborate on something that would be fun if you do those things
My big thing is the difference in speed. If you find a system that you would simply change the camera and filters and have no other differences that the mm would destroy the OSC
Hey Joshua! - Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts mate, I'd like to make that kind of comparison someday and directly pit OSC vs MONO with no other differences, but I'd need to spend a bunch to make it happen fairly I reckon! Clear skies!
@@lukomatico you definitely aren't wrong there. I would be interested myself as I recently made the switch from OSC to mono myself. Maybe this winter I'll be able to see as my redcat is still very much in use.
Hi, do you always use 2x2 Bin mode? I was thinking it does not work unless you use a real CCD astrocam. Do you see an advantage in resolution when u use 2x2 binning? CS
Hey there mate! - we do often use bin2 these days on the 183mm! the reason is because we tend to be oversampling the skies in bin1 mode with those tiny pixels at these focal lengths, so you end up sacrificing capture speed for more empty resolution overall. If we were using for example a 1600mm, or 533, 2600 etc, we'd be back to bin1 mode as the sampling ratio would be more usable again :-) I hope that explains my reasoning a bit my friend!
It's a shame you can't test the mono on the rasa and the one shot on the esprit to see if it makes a difference Personally the mono looks way more subtle and less bloated
Thanks so much for the feedback Nik! - I agree it'd be nice to swap the test around a bit, but it's not something I can really do unless I get my hands on some f2 capable narrowband filters of course 👍👍 Thank you so much for watching!
The comparison you are making is not accurate due to the fact that different cameras are compared with different telescopes. I would like to see a comparison of the color camera with the mono camera on the same telescope for example on RASA. I did exactly the same but with a different type of filter many years ago and the result was very close between the color and mono cameras. In this case, the color camera is the winner for me because of the better real colors of the stars and the nebula itself. By the way the IDAS NBZ UHS has done a pretty good job here in my opinion. I might order the same filter to try it out for myself. Clear skies!
Mono - higher sensitivity, higher resolution and better color fidelity. Refractor. Is RASA telescope? Look more like binocular. Want low f. Get Velose or Newtonian astrograph. For example, Takahashi Epsilon.
@@lukomatico Thanks. We have clear skies now. I will go and do some experiments. Collecting data for different configurations. Task is to resolute structures within NGC6332 and NGC6329. Doesn’t work as yet.
@@lukomatico By the way, than bigger scope than mono superiority is more apparent. For 200mm mirror, difference is already substantial (at least 0.5-0.7 arcseq difference in star sharpness). Sensitivity is also almost twice. I will not put color camera on any scope with glass/mirror > 5”.
@@lukomatico I know you did Luke, wasn’t a criticism… love what you do on this channel… both my rigs are mono… Esprit 100ed and Redcat 51 with 3nm Optolong filters feeding 2 x 2600mm pro cameras so I’m really rooted in NB… but it is really interesting to see OSC at work, producing this quality…. 👍🏻😍 Fastest reply ever to a comment by the way, must be a world record 😳
@@olly7248 Ahh I understand mate! I'm sorry if my reply came off poorly - that was not my intention! I'm really happy to hear that you are enjoying the content Olly, genuinely I am! - I enjoy doing this kind of thing quite a lot as it helps break up the videos and is interesting for me to see the results myself 🙂 (again, sorry if my initial comment came off badly - I do appreciate you taking the time to watch and comment my friend, and for letting me know when I've got the wrong end of the stick!)
@@lukomatico hey, seriously no offence taken at all here, at any point… I’m in awe with all you guys that put stuff out on RUclips… I wouldn’t have a clue about Astrophotography if it wasn’t for all the time and effort expended… Clear Skies ‼️(at some point in UK, hopefully)
@@olly7248 That's awesome to hear mate, I'm really relieved! :-) Thanks for letting me know and thank you again for your time Olly!! I hope you have a fantastic weekend ahead of you!
Hey there! :-) I do indicate in the video that this is not intended as a fair and scientific comparison, but as a representation of what you could reasonably expect from two pretty typical deep sky approaches - I'm sorry you didn't like this one my friend!
I think the mono vs OSC never ending debate should be viewed differently. There is no doubt that a mono camera will on paper thrash an OSC camera in terms of overall quality (and yes there are some great OSC images on Astrobin) but when you have limited amount of time due to bad weather the OSC will have a slight upper hand. Some astrophotographers just want to take decent images so the OSC wins (basically think of a point and shoot simple camera in full auto mode), and some astrophotographers want to pixel peep (they want to print their price winning image on a giant billboard)... so the mono wins there.
Hey there Stephane! - I agree mate, there's definitely no one-size fits all solution to the debate! :-) I do enjoy making these comparisons as it's just interesting for me to see the results from all this wonderful gear being used and compared, my hope is that people watch them and just enjoy them for what they are like you have done - just general real-world comparisons of two common types of rigs & approaches :-)
Thank you for taking the time to watch and comment my friend!
Hi Luke. Great comparison video. It shows everyone new to astronomy and astrophotography as well as seasoned Astrophotographers what is possible between two completely different setups. Agreed with all you said about the richness of the RASA signal compared to the clean and sharper Esprit signal. The final images look great and most of us would be happy to produce either one of them, both are equally fine pictures to me. Keep up the great content and clear skies.
Hey Jon! - Aw mate, thank you so much for that! I'm really pleased you found some enjoyment in this comparison, I have a lot of fun doing these kind of videos as I enjoy seeing what the different gear is capable of - it's something I've always found interesting! :-)
I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend buddy!
All the best,
Luke
Many thanks, Luke. Very interesting to see how well the OSC image compared to the mono image. Loved both images. Keep these great videos coming.
Thank you Peter!! - The gap between the two really is quite close overall, which is amazing to consider in itself!! :-) Thank you for watching!
Excellent video as ever Luke. The results you’re producing with the Uranus C are astonishing for an uncooled camera. Based largely on your previous videos I ordered the camera plus the active cooling attachment. You were right on the money re customer service. Seamless transaction and arrived eight days later as promised. I’ve only had the quickest of tests with it but even just ten minutes on the Elephant Trunk the other night has shown it has great potential. Keep the quality content coming and clear skies!
Hey there Stuart!! - that's fantastic news, I'm so happy to hear you've yourself the Uranus-C 👍👍
I'm confident you'll enjoy it as much as I have, it's a really wonderful camera and I genuinely don't have a bad word to say about it! :-)
Can't wait to hear how you get along with it when you have the chance for a good session out under the stars with the cam, enjoy it my friend!
Clear skies!
P. S, if you have any questions about it, fire away! I'll help if I can :-)
Another great comparison, Luke!
Now I want a mono setup for my RASA 😉
Thanks for this video and CS,
Stephen
Thank you Stephen!! It'd be nice to have a mono kit for the RASA for sure, but it's SO expensive to get those filters, ouch!!
I appreciate you watching! :-)
Chloe’s image is stunning! That one is my preference. Well done!
Thank you David!! - I really agree mate, her data came out jaw-droppingly clean after processing was done! :-D She's better at this game than I am!!
I appreciate you watching mate!
I don’t understand what’s being compared, apart from the results themselves. Telescopes, cameras and filters are completely different. To say that this is about OSC vs monochrome is not correct, IMHO.
Hey Victor! - in the video I do take the time to indicate that this is not intended as a fair and pure scientific comparison, but rather as a real world demonstration of two pretty typical approaches to deep sky imaging, which it does very well I'd say.
Im sorry you didn't like this one mate!
Very nice comparison Luke, That OSC camera really keeps pushing the limits , great camera mate
Thanks Anthony!! It's a wonderful bit of kit for the price, really amazing that we are able to even make these kind of comparisons and it be competitive at all! :-D
I appreciate you watching and taking the time to comment mate, as always! :-) Hope you have a great weekend!
I started out with a 533mc but really considering a mono investment. Some sharpness differences in your comparison can be mostly attributed to the OTA differences, but really liked it. The mono sensor data just looks cleaner.
Hey Tiago! - I'm really happy to hear this was some use to you my friend, there's definitely some advantages to mono when pure image quality is the goal! :-) Thanks for watching!
Great compasion video. thanks for putting in the time
I appreciate that Mark, thank you so much mate :-) Clear skies!
Nice video. I recently had to send my asi294 mm out for repairs so I got back on my 294 mc.
I got better in getting sho look . The improvements made in the last year are impressive as far as processing in pixinsight. My Rosette came out really nice.
Thanks for sharing that Dan!! - Glad to hear it mate, OSC can be a whole lot of fun still for sure! :-)
Good video,….keeping in mind the mono one has about the double of integration time I find the color image really holding up. I wonder what a third solution would look like: merging a color shot from a color camera (for the color) with a luminance shot from a mono camera (for the resolution)
Appreciate your thoughts mate! Thank you for sharing 👍👍
Superb video Luke, I often wondered why the oiii data ( using the L extreme and a 294c colour camera) seemed to be inn the green channel I knew it had to be oiii as the ha was completely different so I used it in my hoo images. Great information pal 👍
Thanks for watching Steve mate!! I'm glad the video was of some use to you, I'm genuinely happy to hear that! :-) Hope you have a great weekend my friend!
Hey Luke! brilliantly presented as always mate! I reckon If you have limited capture time and post mainly on social the RASA OSC combo is an absolute beast for this purpose (with the usual caveats regarding collimation and dew control) and if you want to produce large prints the pixel scale and lack of central obstruction definitely does seem to give finer detail and noticeably tighter stars when zoomed in with the Esprit mono combo.
It would be cool to switch the cameras for the second halve of testing to see how that effects things but easier said than done when your making videos on a weekly basis, and you would also need to swap out peripheries like the ASI Air of course. Have a gooden mate and clear skies! : )
Hey Chris!! Great to hear from you mate :-)
I couldn't have expressed it better myself re: the difficulties of swapping the test around, I'll have to see if I can cook something up in the future but for now I've still had a lot of fun doing these comparisons of "rig A vs rig B" kind of thing, even if they do seem to rile some folk lol - no matter, you can never please everybody I guess!
Thanks so much for watching and giving your thoughts matey, I do very much appreciate it!
Clear skies!
Thank you Luke! Great side by side comparison of the 2 setups. I loved both images in their different ways. I was actually thinking of putting on the less expensive camera on a refractor but wondering what if you had reversed the setup 🤓🤓. I have a 9.25 edgeHD with the ASI533MC PRO but thinking of getting a refractor with the less expensive camera. Love your content!
Thank you Peter!! That's really great to hear my friend :-)
It'd be nice to make that kind of comparison someday, with the cameras swapped over - I'd need to get f2 capable narrowband filters though to really make it work, which is one heck of an investment of cash, haha! - I think your idea of the refractor paired with a cheaper camera could be a lot of fun by the way, good luck!! :-)
Clear skies!
Great video Luke !! I use a zwo 294 mc pro and the l extreme filter with a refractor. I think for most targets this works really well but for the faint nebulas like say the lion nebula probably a mono set up with the additional sensitivity is better. I personally just like the OSC set up for ease of use and speed. As always really good watch mate 👍
Hey Paul! - Ah you and me both mate, I really do love the ease of use from OSC cameras! :-) It'd have to be some camera to force me back mono these days!
Thanks for watching buddy!
I was really impressed by the performance of the RSA/OSC couple, and I can see the advantage in speed over the Esprit/MM camera, especially during the summer season and the short astronomical darkness... as an Esprit120 owner myself 🙂
Although to be honest, rather than speed, I'm more looking at weight and practicality now. A lot easier to find the motivation to get a redcat rig out instead of the bulky Esprit!
Yet another great video Luke, appreciate this format with raw one to one comparison of different rigs results, gives a real sense of what to expect from the scopes (leaving processing skills out of the equation of course!) Cheers
Thank you so much Sebastian, I am really happy to hear you've enjoyed the comparison for what it is 🙂- I find it really interesting to make these side-by-side vids as I'm often simply answering questions that I wonder about myself and sharing the results!
I 100% hear you about the practicality and motivation aspect, I reckon without my observatory I'd be looking to downsize my own equipment for regular use as it can be a huge PITA to setup a big rig for only a few hours!
Thank you again for watching and commenting!
@@lukomatico congrats on the observatory btw mate! Genuinely happy for you 😊 but don’t burn yourself out, we will always be looking forward to your new videos, even if you decrease the pace or try different formats!
One of the biggest factors for star size is the obstruction size, cassigrain scopes will usually have bigger stars than a newt or refractor as they usually have a big obstruction, they do however reduce the bigger the mirror is. This is one of the reasons I stuck with a newt as refractor wasn’t enough aperture for me at a reasonable price
Thanks for the feedback Luke! - Clear skies mate :-)
Hi! Thanks for all your great videos :) I was wondering if you could maybe show us, at some point, a photo from the Esprit combined with the Uranus-C to see if the 2 could work well together?
Thanks Serra! - I'll have to do that comparison at some point for sure yeah, it seems a lot of people would like to see that! Thank you for watching :-)
Great comparison Luke! Have you tried combining the 2 data sets to see what the result would be? I think that would be an interesting addition. Clear skies!
Thanks mate!! That would be interesting to do, I've not actually tried doing that with this data yet - thanks for the suggestion!! :-)
I appreciate you watching and commenting man, thanks again!
You got to know the astrophotography crowd is a tough one. I found your comparison of cameras, scopes and filters interesting. I don't know how much of a OSC vs Mono it was. I think a real comparison would be a cooled OSC camera on the APO, then then an equal size cooled mono camera with filters on the same APO is the only way you could have a fair OSC vs Mono comparison. However, with that said, I still enjoyed the video. Keep 'em coming 😁.
Hey Mike! - You're not kidding mate, haha! :-D I agree that it's not a pure OSC vs MONO comparison only, but I do point that out during the video too. It's a lot of fun for me personally making these comparisons, but honestly they seem to wind people up the wrong way half the time which maybe shouldn't surprise me as it's such a divisive subject overall!
I'm really relieved to hear you enjoyed the video overall my friend, genuinely I am happy about that! :-)
Thanks so much for watching and sharing your thoughts, Clear skies!
The mono is just better and more useful in every area. If you can’t afford the mono with all the filters, just buy the camera and add filters later. You can do so much interesting and fun Astro stuff with just the mono camera.
Thanks for giving your opinion mate!! I appreciate you sharing it :-) I agree that mono is technically better, but that's not the whole story for some people I guess - there's definitely other factors to consider!
Thanks for watching!
Luke, this is great analysis, thanks for sharing, I have a question about player One camera because is no cooled, I guess for every session you have to take your darks, can you share your one player workflow for capturing data one day if you can. Thanks
Thank you Antonio!! I'm very happy you liked the video my friend :-)
Regarding dark frames, I don't use any with the player one! :-) it doesn't need them if you dither your exposures 👍
Hope that helps!!
Hi Luke great comparison of both images I did prefer the look of the Esprit maybe due to the colour separation but the RASA did hold its own well with the OSC camera, maybe I'll get to try out mono one day but this hobby is an expensive one although I have been lucky with some equipment that I own, I'm still happy to shoot OSC & as I use a RASA & changing filters would be a more mechanical affair I guess. Have you considered trying to shoot mono with your RASA8?
Hey Tich mate! - Completely hear ya pal, it's such an expensive game to be in and really mono only makes it moreso! I love what modern OSC can do so for me it's a no-brainer haha :-)
RE: shooting mono with the RASA, i've considered it but put the idea aside as it'd cost a bomb to get the right narrowband filters to allow f2 imaging!
Thanks for watching matey!
I love these comparisons but I like others would like to see the Uranus on the esprit. Keep it up sir!
Thanks so much mate! - Thank you for the suggestion! I'll have to see about getting another astropc setup at some point to allow me to use the Uranus-C on the Esprit as so far we've tended to only use the ASIAIR on that rig for a long time! :-)
@@lukomatico right. I would also be super interested in a close up of the rasa filter draw and back focus train you’re using. I’m a former rasa user and the older ones were a mess. Always waiting for them to improve and get back in stock.
I have to admit, I've not tried a filter drawer on this thing yet!
I've been using the Starizona filter holder camera adapter plate, which seems to be a great bit of kit overall but not convenient for when you want to change filters as you need to remove the whole camera - otherwise though I've been astonished by my rasa, absolutely zero issues thankfully 👍
Clear skies!
The dog is also interested in the background...🐶
Haha! He's always investigating something :-D thanks for watching mate!
Surprised the difference in the Ha is so much. The Blue channel looks to have almost completely washed over any Red on the mono setup, you can see all the structures there lurking, but just don't push through. The more variance in the the dark structure at the top on the Rasa image gives a feeling of more depth, rather than just being a dark blob. Nice comparison though. Pacman is on my list for a revisit for a multi night at some point. The last time I shot it, it was only 1hr 44mins.
Hey Dave! - Hope you are doing well mate! :-)
It's a tough one for me to compare but also very interesting (for me), there's things I like and dislike about both shots for sure, - as you say the mono OIII seems to be overpowering the mono HA in the image, that's an interesting point and I absolutely can't argue bud! I do seem to notice similarly as you mentioned about the rasa images feeling more deep, probably down to the amount of light these things grab I guess! I love both systems but I enjoy my RASA the most currently :-D
Thanks so much for the feedback mate!
Even with binning, the speed of the RASA is still way faster. But even so, I would still pick the mono. The signal and seperation is just so much cleaner. Now a true mono VS OCS would be to get a set of f/2 narrowband filters! :D
Thanks so much Chris! The separation really is wonderful on the mono data with those discrete channels to work with for sure, that's a real advantage of mono - 100%!
I'd love to make a true head-to-head comparison as fairly as possible one day but like you say, I'm gonna need some new gear to make that happen!! :-D
Thanks for watching mate!
Mono definitely looking better and cleaner, but osc for me for nothing more than spending time out there. I don't put my shots online so for myself and my friends the osc is just fine. Keep up the good work my friend.
Hey Peter! - I agree mate, mono is definitely technically better, and yet I still love OSC haha! :-) Thanks so much for watching and weighing in my friend!
Interesting video. Would be interesting to see the exact same comparison, with the same target but swap the cameras on the scopes… (plus you could then do a true camera:camera comparison on each telescope too). Obviously that’s another 20+ hours of your time though 😜
Thanks so much Duncan! - It'd be interesting to try them swapped one day, but I'd need to buy new narrowband filters for the mono setup to shoot at f2 as the ones we have are only really any good down to f3.5-ish, expensive but probably very interesting!
Thanks again mate :-) Clear skies!
@@lukomatico ah yes of course.. plus the dreaded RASA filter drawer!
Hi Luke . Very interesting comparisons . I'm still in awe of that Player-One Camera ! Do you follow James Lamb ? His 22Aug2022 video covers an interesting approach to colour mixing in PixInsight . I don't understand it but I know you will . Cheers./SRK
Hey Scott! - Thank you mate, I'm glad to hear you found the comparison interesting :-)
I've just gone and found James and subscribed to his channel, I'll have to check it out properly sometime as it looks like he has a ton of good content! - Thanks for the heads up my friend! :-)
Hope you have a great rest of the weekend man,
Clear skies!
great stuff luke any idea when the Poseidon-C Camera will be released ??
Hey mate! - It's being worked on still at the minute, they are taking time to refine the design which is really nice to see! :-) Really expecting big things from this cam!
im guessing you will be testing it ASAP ??
With any luck mate yeah, cant wait!
@@lukomatico could be my next purchase looking forward to it luke keep up the awesome content.
@@ninjageezer6802 Thank you mate!! - clear skies!
Nice video, thought about going mono but most likely sticking with RGB , I dont think when zoomed out there is that much difference and the cost is crazy plus with sky's the way they are it would take forever to get data... BTW what part of England are you in. We have family in Reading
Thank you Steve! I totally agree with what you're saying mate, I very regularly use both osc and mono as you know, so for me I get to see the data differences all the time, and it's just not that dramatic of a change really, certainly not what people would have you believe anyway! They act like as soon as you get your mono camera the phone calls from NASA wanting to do research on your data start rolling in! 😅
Some folk really like to push for one way or the other for some reason, I personally just don't care - they both have their place, I just happen to have more fun with OSC!
I'm from 'the north' btw mate, near Leeds 👍
Clear skies!
@@lukomatico Yea I was thinking of going into Mono but the filters are expensive and like I said the time you need .I dont see much difference in the final image, maybe a little ...Every person I show what I take love my images ... Once again thanks for the videos they really help , and if you ever want to try to collaborate on something that would be fun if you do those things
My big thing is the difference in speed. If you find a system that you would simply change the camera and filters and have no other differences that the mm would destroy the OSC
Hey Joshua! - Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts mate, I'd like to make that kind of comparison someday and directly pit OSC vs MONO with no other differences, but I'd need to spend a bunch to make it happen fairly I reckon!
Clear skies!
@@lukomatico you definitely aren't wrong there. I would be interested myself as I recently made the switch from OSC to mono myself. Maybe this winter I'll be able to see as my redcat is still very much in use.
Hi, do you always use 2x2 Bin mode? I was thinking it does not work unless you use a real CCD astrocam.
Do you see an advantage in resolution when u use 2x2 binning? CS
Hey there mate! - we do often use bin2 these days on the 183mm! the reason is because we tend to be oversampling the skies in bin1 mode with those tiny pixels at these focal lengths, so you end up sacrificing capture speed for more empty resolution overall.
If we were using for example a 1600mm, or 533, 2600 etc, we'd be back to bin1 mode as the sampling ratio would be more usable again :-)
I hope that explains my reasoning a bit my friend!
@@lukomatico Sure. I was mixing binning with drizzle. Sorry..
It's a shame you can't test the mono on the rasa and the one shot on the esprit to see if it makes a difference
Personally the mono looks way more subtle and less bloated
Thanks so much for the feedback Nik! - I agree it'd be nice to swap the test around a bit, but it's not something I can really do unless I get my hands on some f2 capable narrowband filters of course 👍👍
Thank you so much for watching!
The comparison you are making is not accurate due to the fact that different cameras are compared with different telescopes. I would like to see a comparison of the color camera with the mono camera on the same telescope for example on RASA. I did exactly the same but with a different type of filter many years ago and the result was very close between the color and mono cameras. In this case, the color camera is the winner for me because of the better real colors of the stars and the nebula itself. By the way the IDAS NBZ UHS has done a pretty good job here in my opinion. I might order the same filter to try it out for myself. Clear skies!
Clear skies mate!! - (p.s - I'm actually working on a more accurate comparison as soon as we get some clear skies! :-D)
Luke, it's pronounced Z. Another great video, loving the observatory.
Thanks Andrew!! Glad you are liking the content mate :-) clear skies!
(what's pronounced 'Z' by the way mate, I may have missed something!)
Hi, I prefer OSC image by Rasa. Many thanks
Thank you for watching Massimo! Clear skies my friend 👍👍
Mono - higher sensitivity, higher resolution and better color fidelity.
Refractor. Is RASA telescope? Look more like binocular. Want low f. Get Velose or Newtonian astrograph. For example, Takahashi Epsilon.
Thanks for the feedback Ana! - Clear skies! :-)
@@lukomatico Thanks. We have clear skies now. I will go and do some experiments. Collecting data for different configurations. Task is to resolute structures within NGC6332 and NGC6329. Doesn’t work as yet.
@@anata5127 Sounds awesome! Wishing you good luck with the task! :-D
@@lukomatico By the way, than bigger scope than mono superiority is more apparent. For 200mm mirror, difference is already substantial (at least 0.5-0.7 arcseq difference in star sharpness). Sensitivity is also almost twice.
I will not put color camera on any scope with glass/mirror > 5”.
No way a RASA will compare with a quality 120mm APO refractor for image detail and field quality.
Agreed! but it did put up a good showing still I felt 👍
Clear skies!
It’s impossible to compare performance, given how different all the components are that created the data sets… the images are both great though👍🏻
Thanks Olly! I do make effort to point that exact fact out in the video! :-D
Clear skies!
@@lukomatico I know you did Luke, wasn’t a criticism… love what you do on this channel… both my rigs are mono… Esprit 100ed and Redcat 51 with 3nm Optolong filters feeding 2 x 2600mm pro cameras so I’m really rooted in NB… but it is really interesting to see OSC at work, producing this quality…. 👍🏻😍
Fastest reply ever to a comment by the way, must be a world record 😳
@@olly7248 Ahh I understand mate! I'm sorry if my reply came off poorly - that was not my intention!
I'm really happy to hear that you are enjoying the content Olly, genuinely I am! - I enjoy doing this kind of thing quite a lot as it helps break up the videos and is interesting for me to see the results myself 🙂
(again, sorry if my initial comment came off badly - I do appreciate you taking the time to watch and comment my friend, and for letting me know when I've got the wrong end of the stick!)
@@lukomatico hey, seriously no offence taken at all here, at any point… I’m in awe with all you guys that put stuff out on RUclips… I wouldn’t have a clue about Astrophotography if it wasn’t for all the time and effort expended… Clear Skies ‼️(at some point in UK, hopefully)
@@olly7248 That's awesome to hear mate, I'm really relieved! :-) Thanks for letting me know and thank you again for your time Olly!! I hope you have a fantastic weekend ahead of you!
Sorry dear, but the comparison is unfair. Apart from the cameras, all the equipment such as telescope, etc are different. Not impressed 🤗.
Hey there! :-) I do indicate in the video that this is not intended as a fair and scientific comparison, but as a representation of what you could reasonably expect from two pretty typical deep sky approaches - I'm sorry you didn't like this one my friend!
@@lukomatico My comment was not meant to hurt you. There are a number of other videos you have made and I have learnt a lot from them 😊.
@@AstroCrescentDIY No harm done mate! - Thanks for clarifying 🙂Clear skies!