QHY Mini Cam 8 - First Light!

I recently acquired a QHY Mini Cam 8 and boy, am I impressed! Yes, the sensor is small, but WOW does it pack a punch!

Here is a sample of my first short stack.

This is using the recommended gain value of 80 with 0 offset. I took nine 300s subs, subtracted a master bias (50x1s, stacked), and stacked the calibrated subs. 

This is also shot using my Askar FRA600 on the Skywatcher EQ6-R mount. 

Love it! Great job, nice framing of the western Veil (Caldwell 34). Slew a little more to get Pickerings triangle in there too! Looking forward to seeing more from this rig!

Another successful night imaging!

With a break in the weather I decided to attempt a very specific object: NGC 206. This star-forming region in M31 is often photographed, but rarely noticed or acknowledged and I wanted to see what my Askar FRA600 and the QHY MiniCam8 could do with it. 

I shot 20x180s each on LRGB using the MiniCam 8 and the Askar FRA600. I was pleasantly surprised that despite relatively poor seeing conditions I was able to average 0.25 total RMS on the guiding using the Sky-Watcher EQ6-R. 
 

Here is the RGB data calibrated (bias only), registered, stacked, and combined using ChannelCombination in Pixinsight. Following that were some very minor level adjustments in Photoshop.

I am looking forward to doing a long-form mosaic with this impressively low-noise sensor and capture all of Andromeda's beauty at some point in the future.