M42 - "First Light" with the QHY600

Equipment: Takahashi FSQ-106 on a Software Bisque Paramount ME, QHY600 CMOS camera with QHY3 CFW

Exposure: 16 hours 49.5 minutes total (H-alpha, L, R, G, B)

So, I installed a new camera in the Conley Observatory at CSAC this month. It promises to signify the end of all CCD astronomy cameras as we know it.

Why? Because it’s the first full-frame (35mm film size) grayscale camera available to astronomers. And because it’s a 16-bit back-illuminated CMOS sensor with quantum efficiency of over 90% (sensitivity), with barely any camera read-noise at all when compared with traditional CCDs, it’s pretty much the perfect camera. Moreover, because the camera accomplishes this with really small 3.75 micron pixels (60 megapixels in total), it matches very well with smaller, high quality refractors like the FSQ-106.

Here is the completed “first light” image with the camera, an HaLRGB image (4 arc degrees wide) of the Orion Nebula region (M42/M43). Remarkably, only a small amount of the M42 core was blown out in the subexposure (massive full-well depth), so I had to mask only a small amount of the core with extra data…a small amount of Ha taken separately.

Taken remotely from Grapevine, Texas at the Conley Observatory, Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus (3RF) near Crowell, Texas. December 3–7, 2019 (h-alpha); December 17–19, 2019 (Ha and LRGB data).