Starlight Xpress Trius Pro 694 mono CCD camera bundle
A reliable setup that has all you need to get imaging
Starlight Xpress has made some interesting improvements to its range of Trius cameras, which are called the Trius Pro series. In this review we are looking at the Trius Pro 694 mono bundle, which claims to contain everything you need to get you up and capturing images in one box.
The Trius Pro 694 bundle comes in a tough foamlined case along with the Lodestar X2 off-axis guide
camera and an SXMFW-1T mini filter wheel. Also
included are all the cables, a power supply, capture
software and drivers for the cameras and filter wheel.
Looking at the camera on its own, the sensor is a medium-format, high-resolution EXview CCD chip, with 6,050,000 x 4.54µm square pixels in a 15.98mm diagonal array. The sensor window is fused silica glass, which is
better at dealing with any air moisture. As well as a
main high-speed USB2 port and three micro-USB ports for connecting accessories, there are two power ports to support the cooling and electronics, and a guide port is included in case it is needed in other applications. The Trius Pro 694 is a CCD-based camera and there is an ongoing debate about whether sensors of this type give the best image: some say that CCDs (charge-coupled devices) are being superseded by CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) sensor technology. Both types of camera produce good images, but many astrophotographers consider that CCDs still hold up a little higher in the quality of the images they produce. Some people argue that CCD cameras are outdated, but they are still being made by nearly all the major camera manufacturers, and in this case improved upon to give Pro versions.
First impressions
As soon as you open the case you’ll be impressed by the attention given to the quality and design of the equipment; the camera is solid with a nice tough coat of paint and all the threads screw together nicely. Assembling the equipment is easy, as the guide camera and filter wheel are already assembled in the case, so all that needs to be done is to open the filter wheel, install
▶ the filters and then screw the camera on the back. The power supply has a splitter to plug in both ports on the camera, and the other cables for the guide camera and filter wheel are made to measure so there is nothing to catch on anything while it’s being used.
Once the camera is installed on the scope it can be controlled by most software. For our review we used Sky X Pro, which has a camera add-on that controls cameras and ancillary equipment, and we used PHD2 for guiding the equipment. Once the main camera was focused, we set up the off-axis guider (OAG) and focused the guide camera. Care is needed to make sure the prism on the OAG is not too low as it will show up in any image captures. The guide camera is focused by sliding it up or down the OAG connecting shaft of the filter wheel, and it works well. In the PHD2 program, the guide camera works best if you capture a dark-frame set using PHD2’s dark library wizard feature.
On target
Due to poor weather conditions over the review period the only clear spells were with a bright Moon, so we opted to use a narrow-band filter set. The Trius Pro 694 is listed in most capture software – we used Nebulosity 4 for our capture. Time was limited so we set the exposures for three minutes. Our first target was part of the Veil Nebula, while on another night we had a chance to capture some data on the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula. Then we captured a full set of calibration frames for processing in PixInsight. After processing, the images proved to be satisfactory for their capture time, revealing lots of faint detail with next to no noise (unwanted artefacts) in the background.
The Trius Pro 694 bundle has something for everyone, while it is generally a deep-sky camera for imaging all types of those objects in the night sky, it can be used for imaging the Sun and Moon as well. The camera is Windows and Mac compatible and, with the included Starlight Live software, it allows you to stack images live as you capture them.