I'm going to be retiring next year. I have an ST10. I would like to get a new camera that closely matches the specs of the ST10. One thing is that it has to be NABG, & the size of the chip should be close to the same. I'm going to use it on a 18" f4.45. I was looking at the STXL6303e, but I'm afraid with the size of the chip, I'm going to get star comas near the edge of the FOV. I also need it to be compatible with an AO unit. I have been away from AP for a while and with cameras changing so fast, I haven't been able to keep up. What model would I be looking for?
The Aluma 3200 is the modern equivalent of the ST-10. It has the same high sensitivity KAF-3200 sensor, better cooling, and AO support. The KAF-3200 is one of the best front-illuminated sensors ever made, with the highest QE in the entire KAF family. Since you want NABG I assume you plan on doing photometry? The STXL-6303 is our most popular choice, having a much larger detection area. The 9 micron pixel size is larger providing greater well depth and is a better match for longer focal length telescopes. If you have a little vignetting then you can simply ignore the corners of the chip - and of course flat-fielding will help with that. What telescope are you planning on using it with?
I'm going to use it on my 18" f4.45. I'm not worried about vignetting, but stretched stars in the corners. I like to do some Asteroid hunting, so that's the reason for the NABG. Thank you for your input. I will check out the Aluma 3200.
The Aluma-3200 will have a pixel scale of 0.7 arc-seconds per pixel on your telescope, so it's a good match to your optics. Given its sensitivity it is an excellent choice for your telescope. The STXL-6303 would be 0.9 arc-seconds per pixel - maybe a little less than optimum resolution but good sky coverage. The sensor is 33.26 mm corner to corner. The diffraction limited field is about 8 mm for your instrument, so yes at 16.6 mm from the axis you'll be seeing coma at perhaps 4X the diffraction limit. So you are correct - unless you have some kind of coma corrector, you will have pretty poor star images in the corners. It might be worth looking into a coma corrector though - more sky area is always better for surveys. That said you have to get the right spacings etc. for it to work properly, which can be difficult to arrange. You will not go wrong with the Aluma 3200.
There are two small differences but it can be updated. Different mounting plate and cable. We have new software for the AO-8A coming; will be available for testing soon.
