ZWO ASI071 Pro Cooled Color CMOS Telescope Camera

have shot this camera about seven sections and the pixs are great. niece detail and color. also i use it for star ligament so no need for spotting scope.

This is definitely an upgrade and a bit of a learning curve from the DSLR. I pretty much had to throw away a night of imaging to work out a lot of details but that is to be expected. I'm using a Celestron 9.25 with the 6.3 reducer. I had done some research indicating that the proper back focus from the end of the reducer to the camera sensor would be around 105mm , so I loaded up on spacers. This turned out not to be so. After a great deal of experiment I landed at about 65mm before the vignetting finally subsided. Most of the learning curve has been around learning how the camera interacts with the computer and whatever programs you're using. To be honest, I still haven't worked all that out. Finally got a whole night of imaging in, though not ideal conditions ( 25mph wind gusts and a bright moon for half the night). I was blown away by the difference in image quality from the DSLR even in less than ideal conditions. Having never dealt with FITS image format there have been a number of other hurdles in the processing of the images that have been hair pulling. Deep sky stacker and pixensight both seem to read the images in gray scale and I had to figure out how to debayer. That word never enters your vocab with a dslr. But I'm sure I will figure all this out in time. That is half the fun of this hobby. Overall great camera so far. Wish I knew how to add an image to this review.

The camera has produced incredible results and holds a -15deg sensor temp no worries all year making bias and dark libraries easy that is the reason right there to not shoot a dslr, keeping a steady temp means you never have to waste half the night shooting darks. The camera is super low noise and has a nice large chip for getting the large and dim nebula targets. I shoot mainly with the 2inch Triad Ultra and it makes collecting data and automation a breeze. Just set up plate solve and then you are money in SGP to shoot multi targets and meridian flips all while asleep. The large sensor and fov makes it an easy transition from a dslr or mirrorless with a real step up in quality. I am happy with the simplicity and ease to replace parts if needed. I have replaced the fan from corrosion from the salt sea air and have cleaned the sensor. Just easy to service no special tools. The one con I saw so far is that I developed some kind of dew or fog on the sensor and needed to open it charge the desiccants and clean the sensor and it's been great ever since. The images speak for themselves.

This camera is awesome! Large sensor able to capture larger targets like M31 and the Pleiades! Camera produces clean low noise data from my Bortle 7-8 skies.

I upgraded from the ASI294MC-Pro, and it's hard to overstate how impressed I am with this camera by comparison. Amp glow is non existent, it has very low read noise both of which give me better data to work with at the end of the day. I'll offer one caveat to an otherwise glowing first impression. On my first night imaging, the sensor began to ice up and the front window fogged up adding insult to injury. Condensation management is critical with this camera. I bought an external dew strip offered by ASI which I view as a necessity with this camera in humid environments like mine. The built-in dew control feature must be turned on in the native driver, but it still requires the additional heating. I also dried the desiccant tablets and reassembled the camera. I haven't experienced the dew issue since, but I don't think the customer should be expected to work quite so hard to compensate for what I feel is a design weakness. Once the condensation issue is addressed however, this camera is awesome. The data is spits out is top notch!

I ordered this camera and a filter. OPT packaged them very well and shipped same day. I've only had it out once, but with better results in less time than I ever had with my DSLR. As usual, it has been mostly cloudy since receiving the camera, but I was able to do a lot of testing as well as building my dark library. This camera is a great and logical step if your coming from a DSLR, or even if you already have a cooled camera and just want an APS-C sensor. It is well built and lighter than my Canon t1i. The low noise, full well depth and dynamic range are really appreciated when you start stretching on post processing and don't see the noise get out of control. I highly recommend this camera now, and I doubt that will change in the future.