El Corazon wrote: My 2 cents:

If you want to save money, I would suggest getting the ZWO ASI120MM-S (the USB3 version, NOT the USB2 version) camera for guiding, which costs ~$100 less than the ToupTek and works unfailingly.

That's a very interesting idea. Would it work well to have two ZWO cameras connected at the same time? If I can save that money, I definitely should.

As for an imaging camera, I have found that the 'walking noise' (presumably you are referring to the noise that looks like driving rain in the final stacked image) is an inherent feature for one shot color cameras and difficult to get rid of completely, even with dithering. At least in my experience.

Yes, pretty sure we're talking about the same kind of noise. Walking noise is the standard name, isn't it? It's also called correlated noise, at least in the popular parlance. But "walking noise" is what I've seen people call it the vast majority of the time. And yes, I'm certain that what I'm dealing with is walking noise.

I'm not expecting to get rid of it completely, but if I could reduce it a bunch, that would be nice. Walking noise is probably my #1 concern with my images as they stand today. (Well, except for things I'm really not able to do much about at all, like the weather and light pollution.)

It is no issue when using a mono camera, but then you obviously have to use filters. However, the mono camera also allows you to do narrowband imaging, which is invaluable for getting the most out of nebulae. In principle, you can do narrowband also with a one shot color camera, but you are losing sensitivity and resolution.

Narrowband just isn't practical for me. I'm lucky to get a few hours of imaging a month; I don't want to start a series and only get GB with no R, or whatever. Also, I'm mostly interested in galaxies. Nebulae are great, but my real focus is galaxies. Oh, and: Narrowband would imply needing to dump a whole much more money into this than I already don't have. So, really not the direction I want to go in.

PS: I forgot to mention: Make sure that the imaging camera you are ending up buying is COOLED! That is perhaps the most important feature. Cooling will cut down the noise tremendously. Especially during summer, cooling is absolutely essential in warmer climates.

The 533 is cooled. That's a big part of why I'm considering it.

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