Thanks to
@Wolfgang Ransburg from TS and his ATT discount I got my hands on a very affordable copy of the Omegon veTEC 571 C with the APS-C sized IMX571 sensor which is also used in the ASI2600MC or the QHY268C. It's basically one of the Touptek clones which are sold by (I think) Orion, Lacerta, RisingCam and obviously Omegon under different names.
It arrived on Wednesday and it was clear on Friday and Saturday. That's a bit disturbing, right? What about the new gear/astro weather curse!? But at least the moon was almost full so conditions were not ideal.
I thought that a globular cluster might be a good choice for a full moon target since gradient removal can be a bit more agressive with this kind of DSOs without affecting the signal too much.
I know that there's still some gradient left and the dust donuts didn't calibrate out completely (boy, there's quite some dust on this new camera...I hope it's on the glass above the sensor and not in between), but I left it a bit raw. It's a first light and that's okay I guess.
All in all, I am happy with how things went. The native NINA driver worked like a charm, cooling was surprisingly fast (30° below ambient within three minutes or so and holding this with about 60% power) and I think I got the backfocus almost right by using some Baader adjustment rings. The remaining faulty star shapes in one corner are probably tilt and cropped away here anyway
The sensor looks incredibly even but that might be my low standards coming from an old DSLR with pretty annoying banding issues.
And finally the image came out okay given that it's a broadband target photographed during a full moon not too far away.
I can't wait to use this camera under better conditions!
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