Perfect guide, solar, or planetary camera
The ZWO ASI120MM Mini is a great little monochrome camera best suited as a workhorse guidescope. It also works well for planetary and solar work. It has a 1/3″ AR0130CS sensor that’s 4.8 mm x 3.6 mm with 1280 x 960 pixels. That means a pixel size of 3.75 μm. In addition to its Type-C USB2 port it has an ST-4 autoguider connection port. It’s pixel size works perfectly as a guidescope when paired with a small telescope like the William Optic 200mm/f4 or similar. Other features include a 12-bit ADC, 80% QE, and up to 35fps videos for lucky imaging. Compared to a higher-end planetary camera like the ASI432 (which has slightly higher resolution and USB-3 with 120fps) the only thing you’re really missing out on is the larger pixels and faster frame rates.
The 120MM Mini is quite the capable little camera! Mine used to sit on a guidescope but I’ve switched to off-axis guiding (OAG). Unfortunately, there hasn’t been time for me to try it out on the OAG and so there it sits. But I’m sure it will perform just as admirably off to the side, stealing a little light from the main time machine camera, as it did on top of it looking through the guidescope.
