I had been using a QHY174M for planetary and lunar imaging with my C11, but decided to try a QHY290M with smaller pixels. I bought the 290 in October 2020, but did not have an opportunity to try it out until now.
The summer of 2021 has been a difficult one for this hobby in southern Ontario. My lawn looks great, but the skies are not cooperating. When we do have a clear night, the smoke from our burning continent takes over while the average person takes no notice whatsoever. One of my favourite weather apps has actually added a smoke forecast to the clouds, temp and humidity predictions (see image version C). All this is apparently normal now. It sure didn't happen when I was a kid. If we don't change soon our kids are doomed.
Anyway, thats not what I wanted to show here. Last year I took Petavius using my QHY174M under decent conditions. (
Petavius 2020 with QHY174M ) On July 26, 2021 I took Petavius again using the QHY290M under poor conditions. Its not exactly a scientific comparison, but I think it does serve to compare the 2 cameras somewhat. Both versions of the cameras were the 5III eyepiece size, so if I tire of them I can just use them a guide cameras!
The QHY174M has 5.86 um pixels while the QHY290M has 2.90 um pixels. Both shots were using the C11 Edge and a Powermate 2x to bring the focal length to 5600mm. If I have done my math right, the 290M yields 0.10 arcseconds per pixel. At my latitude, with the moon so low in the summer sky the seeing will never support that, but I can take longer videos to try to compensate.
I think the 290 does a nicer job with the finer detail. The detail running along the crater rim looks like a railway track with the 290M - that is much harder to appreciate with the 174M.
I can't wait to try this out when the seeing is actually good!
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