Greetings,
I create a new post because I am interested in exoplanet/variable star photometry. I plan to use a QHY 6 cooled Mono CCD which is an excellent guiding camera and a very good entry level ccd for astrophotography. I want to ask if anyone has used this ccd camera for photometry and if yes,how good were your results? I do not expect precise/excellent results but I hope I will get some decent results until I manage to buy a very good Mono CCD camera.
I use a 1000 mm focal length Newtonian telescope. QHY 6 gives me a FOV: 0.28° x 0.21°. It is a bit narrow fov but I think in most cases I will not have a problem finding comparison stars. Testing will give me a taste of what this camera can accomplish. Now I do photometry with an Atik 320E mono ccd camera,my University lent me to conduct my thesis work. In a couple of months I have to give it back so I am searching for an alternative.
Best regards,
George Lekkas.
I never used the QHY 6 for anything else but guiding, so no experience for photometry :-( but I can used a sensor with similar dimensions and hence FOV on my f=1000mm scope and indeed, no need to worry: you will be able to find comp stars unless you are dealing with really bright targets.
The cooling of the QHY 6 is unregulated, so the sensor temperature will vary with ambient temperature and you must be careful to use dark frames at the same sensor temperature as the light frames. You'll have pixels that are ~2 arcsec wide, which is qute a lot and one has to be careful not to overdo the focusing, if the focusing is super sharp you'll have a a lot of fluctuiation in the ratio of the star light that falls in between pixels and is not measured, but defocus will mitigate that. I think you will be fine.
HB