I have not had much clear sky time this year. Been extra heavy on the clouds. Originally that was because of El Ninio, which was hot and heavy until the end of spring this year. But, the pacific conditions are returning to La Ninia status...so, I honestly don't know why the clouds are still perpetual.
Anyway...I dropped $3700 on some new camera gear in April. I've only been able to use it once...on the moon!
Just to give you guys an idea of how much better dedicated astro gear can be...this is from an ASI1600MM-Cool camera, running at -15°C. I used very high quality AstroDon LRGB filters (these alone cost $500), since the camera is monochrome. The camera has only 1.5e- read noise, and 0.008e-/s dark current @ -15C (compared to my 5D III, which has a monstrous 4e-/s @ 28C!!!) So, this is an ultra low noise camera.
I acquired high speed video sequences for four filters, LRGB, between 30-50fps. Graded, culled, aligned and stacked the top 15% of those in a program called AutoStakkert!2 to get individual Luminance (L), Red, Green and Blue channel images. I then processed those in PixInsight to combine it all into a deconvolved, high detail full-color image:
You can see a larger version here:
http://www.astrobin.com/full/260298/B/
And, for those who are willing to download the full size, you can see that here:
http://www.astrobin.com/full/260298/B/?real=&mod=
To contrast the quality of this camera with what I've been able to get with my 5D III. This is the largest lunar image I've had with the 5D III:
See full size here: http://i.imgur.com/NiWu0FV.jpg
I used video capture with this one, but the 5D III can barely sustain about 20fps. On top of that, the low pass filter and interpolation to convert the bayer CFA to a full color image really softens things up. The next highest resolution single-image of the moon I've got from the 5D III is this guy:
See full size here: http://i.imgur.com/r7DlVOz.jpg
This was a while ago, but it was on a night of very good seeing, so the detail was pretty darn good. But it only holds up at this size...again, the low pass filter and interpolation soften things up. The ASI1600 has neither a low pass filter, nor does it need to be demosaiced...you get a 100% fill factor on every channel.