Orion StarShoot Pro Deep Space Color CCD Camera
Reviewer: Ken
I picked up a "second" one of these as
my first ever dedicated astro camera. I
have taken a bunch of nebula images with
it so far. If you're looking for red
sensitivity, it certainly has that, a
big improvement over my stock Nikon I
was using previously. My particular
device has a few hot pixels, which while
not image-threatening, do tend to punch
black pixels in your frames after
calibration. For the money, you're
paying a lot per megapixel. You have to
weigh this against what you get in a
DSLR today: you get no place to insert a
memory card, no daytime use, no lens,
requires a computer to use etc. And the
noise level is certainly not zero, or
even close to it, but is just "reduced".
I don't know that it's all that much
better than well calibrated DSLR images.
The plus points are that you get to play
with a real astro camera and associated
software, which improves your learning
and appreciation for the subject at
hand. So, I'd say, if you want red
sensitivity in your images, and you're
already fairly adept at DSLR imaging,
and you can afford a dedicated space
cam, then this is a good bet. (For what
it's worth, the nose piece is identical
to item #05270.)
Orion StarShoot Pro Deep Space Color CCD Camera
Reviewer: Socrates Garcia
For the price, you can't beat the
performance of this camera. First time
out, it took great pictures, it was easy to
setup and processing the pictures was a
breeze.
Orion StarShoot Pro Deep Space Color CCD Camera
Reviewer: Mel Wurth
I finally had a chance to use my
Starshoot Pro. The camera works like a
charm. Since I had used a DSLR, focusing
was a bit more work, but the readouts in
Maxim help quite a bit. The camera with
my other accessories showed more coma on
my refractor than I had seen with my
DSLR. The camera's cooling helped reduce
noise to good levels.
One con was the processing part of the
software. Be careful when using the
remove from list in auto processing. On
my setup, it deleted the files from my
drive. Fortunately I made a back up just
in case, because it was new software to
me. I then used the software that I
would normally use to process the
pictures and the file structure of the
camera and Maxim worked very smoothly.
It decreased processing time quite a bit.
This is the first true ccd camera I have
used. I like the red response from the
camera. I was surprised that I had to
take longer exposures to see my object
while framing than I did with my DSLR.
That may be due to my lack of knowledge
of the software. The final results were
pretty good other than the coma
mentioned (which is not the camera's fault).
All in all, this is a good camera at a
reasonable cost. I hope to use it for a
very long time.
Orion StarShoot Pro Deep Space Color CCD Camera
Reviewer: John
This is my first DSI camera having only
used a modified web cam beforehand.
This camera and its associated software
has proven to be a very versitile camera
providing large sized images of galaxies
and nebulas. Have not tried it with
planets yet and anticipate that the web
cam video concept will be better for that
aspect. I highly recommend this camera.
Orion StarShoot Pro Deep Space Color CCD Camera
Reviewer: Robert Moore
I purchased this camera for use at our
university observatory. We were hoping
to use
it to obtain images that we could use in
our
introductory astronomy classes - the
whole
"closer to home" idea. The first object
we tried
to image was M57. To say we were
impressed
with the result is an understatement. A
120-
second exposure clearly shows the
gorgeous
reds, yellows, and blues in the nebula as
well as
the structure with little blurring. We
have taken
many more images since and remain
impressed
with the camera's ability and ease of use
(none
of us had used such a camera before
after all).
The one complaint I have is the DC
power
supply that comes with it for the TEC.
This
camera was purchased to be used in an
enclosed observatory. As such we have
ready
access to AC power, but DC power
would
required us to purchase another $100
piece of
equipment - in the form of a
rechargeable,
portable DC power supply - in order to
power
the camera. An included, or optional
even, AC
adapter would have been greatly
appreciated.
Orion StarShoot Pro Deep Space Color CCD Camera
Reviewer: Arnie Johansen
I bought my SS Pro in September. On the
first night, I did the M8, shooting FIT.
I don't have guiding, so I used about
60x 15 seconds on Celestron 8" SCT, and
stacked in Maxim DL EE. The colour was
nearly perfect out of the box, the noise
was very low, and the resulting photo
was stunning and ready for show.
Later I did the Helix nebula. Even with
2 hours exposure (500 x 15 seconds), the
photo was quite noisy. I did a 2-hour
photo on the Meade DSI3Pro, and used
this as the L, and the Orion DSIPro as
the RGB. This gave me a nice helix. So,
the Orion SSPro is nowhere near as
sensitive as the Meade (which admittedly
is monochrome, but un-cooled). Still,
the SSPro is a great camera, and I am
happy with the purchase.
Orion StarShoot Pro Deep Space Color CCD Camera
Reviewer: William Carney
While the camera did give good pic's at
first it slowly failed in it's TEC and
increasingly got "noisy". Maybe I just
got a bad one out of many but I will
wait till version 2 or 3 comes out
before trying again. I traded mine back
in for an Atlas GOTO mount. The DSP
camera does have good value for the
money if it works.
Orion StarShoot Pro Deep Space Color CCD Camera
Reviewer: Cy Holmes
I'm a newbie and up to now was getting
nice results from my EOS20D at prime
focus of LX200R. First light from the
Starshoot Pro was Lagoon Nebula quickly
followed by Trifid, even with just
10x1min exposures its blown everything
I've done previously out of the water. I
was hesitant to spend the bucks and was
undecided which cam to go with. But I
made the right decision, its opened up a
new level for me.
Orion StarShoot Pro Deep Space Color CCD Camera
Reviewer: Mark Christensen
Have used the cooled, color, 6MP
StarShoot Pro now two nights. Easy to
use out of the box. Have used it with
both 80mm ED refractor (with Williams
Optics reducer/flattener) and 6 inch f/5
newtonian with Baader Coma Corrector.
Easy to use and the performance is
outstanding for the price. I had to make
a 37mm T-to-T spacer to position the
reducer and the coma corrector at the
right distance from the film plane. If you
shot only prime focus you don't need to
worry about this. Very nice product,
good price, with very good preformance.
Orion StarShoot Pro Deep Space Color CCD Camera
Reviewer: Ralph Frontera
This imager is fantastic and is what Orion
said it is. I was a DSI user for a long
time. And I was unable to get any good
images with it. I was ready to give up
on imaging. On saturday I got my
StarShoot pro put it in my scope and got
an image. This camera is great very
user
friendly the software is great and works
well. My autostar suite from ...the
competitor... was
awful and never worked well. The star
shoot pro is as good as a 4000.00
(dollar)
imager. Orion made imaging a great
part of astronomy at a great price for
the consumer. The StarShoot Pro is a
no brainer for any kind of astroimager--
whether a well seasoned astronomer or
a beginner. Great job Orion Ralph.
Orion StarShoot Pro Deep Space Color CCD Camera
Reviewer: Mark Cantrell
First light images of M8 are very
encouraging. With only 25 minutes of
total exposure, my M8 images are
showing more of the faint nebula at
outer fringes of the nebula, and more
faint stars, than last year's 40 minute
images taken with a modified DSLR (IR
filter removed and camera peltier-cooled
from the outside). I also like the larger
pixels, 16-bit A-D, built-in TEC, and
simplicty. (DSLR's viewfinder is handy.
But I worry I'll wear out the shutter and
mirror every time I have to take dozens
of images to focus.) Note that my driver
CD-ROM was unreadable. But Orion had
the drivers posted online quickly. Also,
my computer locked up a few times. But
that may be as much my computer's
fault as the software's. Hopefully a
MAXIM DL update and/or ASCOM drivers
will stabilize things. Until then, I'll be
using Maxim DL for the guider and
Maxim Essentials for the imaging camera.
This latest addition to the StarShoot line features a big 1.8" format (25.10mm x 17.64mm) Sony 6.1-megapixel color CCD chip with a 3032 x 2016 pixel array. That gives the Pro more than 6.5 times the light collecting area and over four times as many pixels as similarly priced astronomical CCD cameras. In fact, it uses the same chip found in competitors' cameras costing over $4,000! The Pro's 7.8µ x 7.8µ pixel size provides an excellent balance between high resolution and sensitivity. You'll get beautiful, detail-rich shots with enough resolution to make large-format color prints suitable for framing!
