All about the Zwo ASI camera as585mc

The ZWO ASI585MC camera is equipped with a color CMOS sensor of 8.29 million pixels (3840 x 2160 px) and 12.84 mm diagonal. At full resolution, the maximum acquisition speed reaches 46 images/second with a dynamic on 12 bits. Three characteristics are to be remembered: its complete absence of electroluminescence, its very high sensitivity in the close infrared and a very low reading noise.


With its sensor in format 1/1.2 ", the ZWO ASI585MC camera is adapted to lunar and solar imaging. It can also be used as" All-Sky "camera (Nuageous coverage monitoring for an observatory), for capture meteors or monitoring of meteorological phenomena.

Sensor performance

Designed by Sony for surveillance and safety applications, the IMX585 sensor is built on the Starvis architecture 2. The latter incorporates powerful features allowing obtaining light and contrasting images, with a large dynamic, including in extremely limited lighting conditions. The main technology consists of lighting from the back of the photosites; The sensor is said to be "back-illuminated" (or bsi, backsc illumination). This technique reduces the distance to be crossed by light in the sensor and reduces the blocking of photons by non -photosensitive electronic elements. The sensitivity is very strongly increased, even in condition of very low light. The sensor is also extremely effective in the close infrared (NIR), a strip pricit by planetary astrophotographers for its lower sensitivity to atmospheric turbulence.

Comparison between ASI585MC and ASI485MC

The ZWO ASI585MC camera is considered an evolution of the ASI 485MC model. There are many improvements: absence of electroluminescence, lower darkness current, pixel capacity 3 times greater. It also has greater sensitivity in green, red and the close infrared than the ASI485MC; It is even 1.5x more sensitive in wavelengths greater than 850 Nm.


The camera incorporates an HCG (High Conversion Gain) device which can reduce the high -gain reading noise while retaining the great dynamic that you would get low gain. This HCG mode activates automatically as soon as the gain reaches 150. The reading noise falls to 2 e- while the dynamic range goes up to 12 stops.

Assembly mechanics

The ASI585MC has a female M42 input entry; The backfocus is then 17.5 mm. By removing the female adapter, you have access to a M42x0.75 male thread. In this case, the backfocus is 6.5 mm. The female adapter is to be preferred if you want to integrate other ZWO accessories (filter wheel or optical divider) in the fitting of the instrument.

A M42 mechanical converter to 31.75mm male is delivered, as well as a 2m length USB cord and a ST4 autoguidage cord.
Softwares

As with all the cameras of the ZWO brand, the main camera control software and the most complete is Asistudio, freely downloadable from the manufacturer ZWO website. The brand also offers free SDK (software development kit) so that many software, free or paid, natively support the ZWO cameras: Prism, Nina, Firecapture, Maximdl, Sharpcap, PHD2, Allskeye, etc. We invite you to refer to the specific documentation of this software to find out their level of compatibility or to visit the ZWO website to obtain an exhaustive list.

ZWO also offers an ASCOM unified pilot for the management of all its accessories through the ASCOM/ALPACA platform. This pilot can be freely downloaded from the Zwo website.

For Linux and Mac users, Indigo or Indigo drivers are free and available on the websites of these platforms. Management is then carried out through KSTARS/EKOS software (under Linux) and Astroimager/Astrotelescope offered by the Cloudmakers editor (under Mac).

Finally, ZWO cameras are accessible through video pilots like Directshow or Twain. For more details, visit the ZWO website.