Just picked up an ST-10XME CFW8a+LRGB HaPosted By Tyler Allred |
Jeff,
I will comment on my experience with my FLI CM-10, which has the same chip as the ST-10XME.
The chip is incredibly sensitive, both to light from the scope and to stray light. That high sensitivity is both a blessing and a curse. It will bring out the faint fuzzies really well, but will bloom almost instantly if there is a bright star in the image, and light pollution can be a problem as well.
The small blooms are pretty easy to deal with, especially if they don't cover anything important. But the HUGE ones can be really tough. MaxIm does a pretty good job of removing them. I have also used the DeBloomer plugin, which is more powerful but takes some time to learn how to use. CCDStack also has some really nice tools for deblooming, including a method for replacing the area that was wiped out by the bloom, but replacing it requires rotating the camera and taking more exposures, which is a little inconvenient. For me, the blooms were specially problematic for imaging nebulae, because they always seem to wipe out something important.
I personally found the vignetting through 1.25" filters to be pretty bad, but I was using it at F/3.3 and F/3.6 on my scopes. The NP-101 should not be as bad in that regard. The vignetting can be "fixed" with flats, and the flats will make the image "look" even to the corners, but I am sure that the frames lose detail there just due to lack of signal.
I can't speak directly to the internal reflections, because I always assumed that mine were from the filters. I never noticed that as a problem.
Despite all the difficult things about the NABG chip, my CM-10 is now at FLI for an upgrade to the new Microline system. I plan to use mine for narrowband work, which really benefits from that high QE. Many of the great images I have seen over the years were taken with that chip, so it is certainly capable of taking excellent images. I plan to use my upgraded Microline version for many years.
That is my 2-cents worth. I'm sure you will produce some great work with the camera.
Cheers,
Tyler
I will comment on my experience with my FLI CM-10, which has the same chip as the ST-10XME.
The chip is incredibly sensitive, both to light from the scope and to stray light. That high sensitivity is both a blessing and a curse. It will bring out the faint fuzzies really well, but will bloom almost instantly if there is a bright star in the image, and light pollution can be a problem as well.
The small blooms are pretty easy to deal with, especially if they don't cover anything important. But the HUGE ones can be really tough. MaxIm does a pretty good job of removing them. I have also used the DeBloomer plugin, which is more powerful but takes some time to learn how to use. CCDStack also has some really nice tools for deblooming, including a method for replacing the area that was wiped out by the bloom, but replacing it requires rotating the camera and taking more exposures, which is a little inconvenient. For me, the blooms were specially problematic for imaging nebulae, because they always seem to wipe out something important.
I personally found the vignetting through 1.25" filters to be pretty bad, but I was using it at F/3.3 and F/3.6 on my scopes. The NP-101 should not be as bad in that regard. The vignetting can be "fixed" with flats, and the flats will make the image "look" even to the corners, but I am sure that the frames lose detail there just due to lack of signal.
I can't speak directly to the internal reflections, because I always assumed that mine were from the filters. I never noticed that as a problem.
Despite all the difficult things about the NABG chip, my CM-10 is now at FLI for an upgrade to the new Microline system. I plan to use mine for narrowband work, which really benefits from that high QE. Many of the great images I have seen over the years were taken with that chip, so it is certainly capable of taking excellent images. I plan to use my upgraded Microline version for many years.
That is my 2-cents worth. I'm sure you will produce some great work with the camera.
Cheers,
Tyler
