ZWO ASI2600MC Pro APS-C Cooled Color Astronomy Camera

Top Notch Specifications

The ASI2600MC Pro features some of the best specifications available to consumers. It has a quantum efficiency of over 80%, meaning more than 80% of the photons that hit your sensor are recorded as data — essential when imaging such faint objects in deep space. It also has an ADC of 16 bits, which allows for an impressive dynamic range of 14 stops. It also features a large full well capacity of 50,000e, which means each pixel can record a high amount of information without clipping your precious data.

Dual Gain Structure

Unlike some older astronomy cameras, the ASI2600MC Pro features a dual gain structure. At gain 100, the read noise plummets and the dynamic range improves to allow for pristine images even at a relatively high gain, further increasing the sensitivity of the sensor for capturing the faintest objects in space. ZWO recommends a gain of 100 for nearly all applications with this camera.

Zero Amp Glow

Say goodbye to amp glow — the weak infrared light source found on older astronomy cameras and many DSLRs & mirrorless cameras that can affect your dark frames. Amp glow is nonexistent on the ASI2600MC Pro, making calibration frames a snap.

Backside Illuminated Sensor (BSI)

Sony’s back-illuminated CMOS image sensor improves sensitivity and noise reduction – the key factors to enhancing image quality, while radically realigning their fundamental pixel structure from front-illumination to back-illumination. This has retained the advantages of CMOS image sensors such as low power consumption and high-speed operation.

Lightweight Design

The ASI2600MC Pro weighs just 1.5 lbs (0.7 kg), which is light enough to fit nearly any telescope rig or camera lens (with the correct adapter, sold separately) and be portable enough to travel with.

Two-stage TEC Cooling

Like the ASI6200, the ASI2600MC Pro also uses two stage TEC cooling and can lower the CMOS sensor temperature to more than 35ºC below ambient temperature. This greatly reduces dark current generation and sensor noise even with extended exposure times. At a cooling temperature of 0°, the dark current noise is only 0.003e/s/pix. This means a 300-second exposure can only cause 0.9e dark current noise, which is less than the readout noise. While at a cooling temperature of -20°, the dark current can even reduce to 0.00021e/s/pix, which is completely negligible. Please note: the camera’s TEC cooler requires a 12V external power supply (not included).

USB 3.0 for High Speed Data Transfer

The ASI2600MC Pro is equipped with a USB 3.0 transmission interface and a built-in 256MB DDR3 cache to ensure stable and secure data transmission. During long exposures, this combination effectively avoids frame dropping and greatly reduces the glow effect caused by slow readout speed.

Full Specifications

• Sensor: Sony IMX571 Back-illuminated CMOS
• Resolution: 6248×4176
• Pixel Size: 3.76μm
• Sensor Size: 23.5mm x 15.7mm
• Max FPS at full resolution: 3.51FPS
• Read Noise: 1.0e-3.3e
• QE peak: >80%
• Full well: 50ke
• Exposure Range: 32μs-2000s
• ADC: 16 bit
• USB: 3.0