About the Author (Sebastiano Caglio)
I’m an 18 year old astrophotographer from Munich, Germany with about 3 years of experience. Since I was a kid I have always been amazed by the universe and its wonders and spent many hours stargazing around the whole world. I started out with a simple DSLR and tripod - the regular equipment I had already from my wildlife photography background. Yet, when I saw the wonderful, dark Sahara night sky back in 2024, I knew that astrophotography was really for me. Over the years, I upgraded my gear over and over again until 8 months ago where I got my first monochromatic astrocamera, the ToupTek ATR533M. Since October 2025, I am also an amateur telescope maker. So far I have handmade an 8“ mirror which I will mount into a self-built Newtonian telescope for astrophotography that I am currently working on. I expect to see its first light in just a few weeks.
Review Article
Imaging Setup
- ToupTek ATR533M DSO Cooled Astronomy Camera
- ToupTek AFW-M 8x1.25“ Electronic Filter Wheel
- ToupTek 1.25“ LRGBSHO filters
- ToupTek OAG-L Off-Axis-Guider
- ZWO ASI 120MM Mini Guide Camera
- Skywatcher Explorer 150 PDS Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro
- Acquisition: NINA, GSS, PHD2
- Processing: Siril, PixInsight, GraXpert, RC Astro plug-ins, Lightroom
For the past eight months I have had the chance to use and review the ToupTek ATR533M DSO Cooled Astronomy Camera with its dedicated AFW-M Electronic Filter Wheel, 1.25“ LRGBSHO filters and the OAG-L. As someone who had never used a monochrome camera before this project, I was able to experience the entire process of building a mono imaging setup and learning how to work with it from the ground up. Now, I want to share my journey and how this setup has performed in real-world astrophotography.
What’s in the box?
Let’s start with the unboxing. The package came directly from ToupTek in China and thanks to their great packaging everything arrived perfectly intact. I also have to add that in my case, ToupTek handled the import process and I did not have to pay any additional taxes or fees upon delivery. Importing equipment from outside the EU can understandably be a concern for European astrophotographers, so I was pleased to find that the entire process was handled without any issues.
The first thing I noticed when I opened all of the boxes was the surprising amount of accessories that are included. The camera came with a data cable, a power cable with the plug adapter for your country and a variety of different spacers, rings and adapters. The filter wheel’s package contained a screwdriver, lots of tiny screws for unthreaded filters, a few more adapters and of course the filters. The OAG-L came with its dedicated adapter (you can choose the size that best fits your telescope). While the individual boxes have slightly different designs, that is hardly something that matters once the equipment is out under the stars.
The setup is very straightforward, especially with the various tutorial videos available on ToupTek’s YouTube page. Even though it is not contained in the package I recommend using a regular camera lens blower when installing the filters to make sure they are free of any dust particles. In less than 30 minutes I was able to get everything mounted and ready to use.
After installing, I connected the equipment to my laptop. The first thing I did was install the correct driver and the new firmware for the filter wheel. I strongly recommend this, as the outdated version can cause issues such as unwanted internal light sources.
Once everything was set up, I opened NINA and started connecting the equipment. It works perfectly every time and the user interface is also very simple to understand. Note that I used the USB Hub on the back of the camera to connect the filter wheel and the guide camera and it works flawlessly.
The Camera: ATR533M Astronomy Camera
The ATR533M is part of ToupTek’s DSO Cooled Camera line and uses Sony’s IMX533 monochrome sensor. It features a 3008 × 3008 resolution with approximately 9 million square pixels measuring 3.76 µm × 3.76 µm, resulting in an image area of 11.28 × 11.28 mm. The camera combines a two-stage TEC cooling system with an integrated dew prevention heater, allowing the sensor temperature to be controlled precisely during an imaging session. It also supports 14-bit RAW readout, providing fine signal quantization for astrophotography.
As somebody who had never used a mono camera before, I can say that having high quantum efficiency over a broad part of the visible spectrum is a major advantage and a giant leap from a regular unmodified camera. Being able to isolate different parts of the spectrum with dedicated filters gives me far more possibilities when imaging, especially from my balcony in a very light-polluted area.
Paired with my 6“ f5 Newtonian, it has a sampling scale of around 1"/pixel, which is slightly oversampled for my imaging conditions. While you could argue that the native 9 MP resolution sounds modest by today's standards, sufficient integration and well-sampled data also give you the option of using 2× drizzling. This produces a 36 MP output image and can make better use of the information contained in a well-dithered dataset, potentially recovering additional spatial detail. Even my cropped, undrizzled images show plenty of detail thanks to the relatively small pixels and are more than suitable for regular-size prints.
The cooling system reduces dark current considerably, while the camera’s zero-amp-glow design is particularly beneficial for long-exposure deep-sky imaging. With my typical imaging settings, I found the camera's dark signal to be low enough that I could often work without dark frames, although I would still recommend testing a proper dark calibration workflow for your own setup. The resulting signal is very clean, and with appropriate Gain and Offset settings, faint structures can be captured with excellent clarity. I personally set the Gain to 100 and the Offset value to 300. So far, this combination has produced clean and detailed images across all of my filters and imaging conditions.
In my experience, the camera delivers performance that I would consider professional level, while remaining relatively accessible to beginners. It connects really quickly, the cooling is spot on, the image quality is amazing. The only thing I would keep in mind is that the camera has a fixed camera flange to sensor distance of 17.5mm with the filter wheel attached to it. If you are selecting adapters or calculating back focus, make sure to account for this spacing. Once this is taken into consideration, I found the ATR533M extremely reliable throughout my testing.
The AFW-M Electronic Filter Wheel
I chose the 8 x 1.25" version because it allows me to keep the complete LRGBSHO set installed at the same time. Although an eight-position wheel takes longer to configure initially, I find it particularly useful as a beginner in monochrome astrophotography because I can seamlessly switch between broadband and narrowband imaging.
When you connect the filter wheel, you instantly hear the motor inside spinning the wheel to make sure you can start imaging in the correct orientation. Thanks to the corresponding drivers, I was able to calibrate the filter positions in NINA very easily. As I said earlier: You need to install the new firmware for it, which won’t take any longer than 5 minutes.
My experience with the AFW-M has been really positive, it always reliably worked and never failed to do anything I told it to do. Not even my laptop completely crashing while it was spinning could throw it off — I reconnected my gear and it automatically reset its position precisely. ToupTek nailed this one too.
The 1.25“ LRGBSHO Astronomical Filters
In order for the filters to fit inside filter wheel, I went for the 1.25“ option and got both the LRGB broadband and the 6.5nm narrowband SHO ones. They arrived in two separate protective cases inside the AFW-M box. All of them were perfectly clean when I first inspected them so I mounted them right away. As I mentioned before, you might need a separate camera lens blower to make sure they remain as clean when installing into the filter wheel.
I started off with the Narrowband filters and was blown away by the results. I was skeptical at first, but the images show astonishing detail and clean structures. Throughout my testing, I did not encounter any noticeable halos or other optical artifacts.
The LRGB filters performed equally well, producing sharp and clean images without noticeable gradients or halos.
The only thing that is important to know about these filters is that they are not perfectly parfocal. That means that you have 2 options: 1) Refocus after every filter change (e. g. if you are focusing manually) or 2) configure specific offsets for each filter (if you have an electronic focuser). I chose the latter and even though it did take some time to determine the correct offsets. Since then, the stars have remained crisp and sharp whenever I change filters and I have not needed to adjust the values.
The OAG-L
Before testing ToupTek’s Off-Axis-Guider, I had heard mixed opinions about using a guide scope vs. an OAG. Nevertheless, I am glad that I chose the more compact option — and particularly ToupTek’s version of it. The OAG-L uses a relatively large 10x10 mm prism, providing a 7x10 mm optical window for the guide camera. This allows you to have a clear image even if the camera is slightly rotated. The fine scale on the side makes it easy to keep track of the correct focus position, meaning that even if the guide camera position is accidentally changed, it can be returned to the same position precisely. But thanks to the secure locking mechanism, accidental movement is unlikely. It is also worth mentioning how sensitive and smooth the adjustment mechanism feels.
There are only a few caveats to consider. First of all, you need to really dial in the correct position of the prism. With my ATR533M setup, I found that it had to sit a few millimeters above its lowest setting, since otherwise it would intrude into the main optical path and noticeably darken the upper third of the image. I recommend to have at least 2-3mm of clearance beyond the required minimum. Secondly, it works best with ToupTek’s own guide cameras. That doesn’t mean that it won’t work with any other camera, but if you plan on using one from a different brand like I did, you will need to adjust it to the correct back focus distance. That can be a bit tricky but as soon as you are roughly there, the fine adjustment on the OAG-L will help you reach precise focus. Apart from that, the performance is fantastic; guiding is spot on, even when my mount decides to do its own thing. One particularly impressive test for me was guiding on a double star while using only one of the two stars for guiding. The OAG-L handled this without any issues, successfully locking onto and guiding on the individual star.
Final thoughts
In conclusion, the only thing I can say is this: Both the individual components and their combination deliver astonishing results, making this a setup that can take you from discovering monochrome astrophotography for the first time to pushing your own images further than you ever thought possible. What makes this combination even more impressive is that it manages to deliver this level of performance while remaining relatively accessible in terms of price. Take it from someone who knew virtually nothing about mono cameras until about two months before receiving the ATR533M bundle: making the switch to monochrome astrophotography can take your images from simply looking “nice” to professional-looking frames that you genuinely want to print, hang on a wall and keep coming back to.
For me, ToupTek’s ATR533M bundle made that seemingly enormous leap much more approachable, while giving me the opportunity to learn and refine every part of the workflow step by step. And perhaps that is what I find most rewarding about the entire experience. Looking at an image and knowing how much went into creating it gives the final result a completely different meaning. What initially seems like a complicated combination of hardware, filters and software gradually becomes a creative process where every decision shapes the final image.
Eight months ago, monochrome astrophotography was completely new territory for me; today, I cannot imagine my imaging setup without it — and ToupTek’s ATR533M bundle is a big part of the reason why.
Image Gallery
