The epic battle
It's the old master vs the new upcomer. If money where no limiting factor, I would probably have a CCD with a filter system as my main imaging device.
CCD - Charge Coupled Device.
Each pixelrow are coupled together and after collecting charge generated form incoming light the whole row is sequentially read out pixel by pixel, row by row. The technology has been around a while and can be made very sensetive and good for astrophotography. They come in monochrome as standard and one need the use of filters to get colours in the images.
ASI1600 mm pro
As the first mono camera I got the infamous ASI1600 MM Pro from ZWO.
This is said to be one of the most important game changer for amateurs in a long time. Bringing high quality, to an affordable prise.
The change from DSLR is massive, not only for work flow, but also for all the features it brings.
Below is an unboxing of the red little thing.
CMOS - Complemetary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor.
Also a mouthfull. The name really refers to the type of semiconductor used in the sensor. The imaging part is called Active-Pixel-Sensor, APS.
Every pixel has a transistor for it's photodiode collecting the light. This means that some space around each sensor need to be ocupied by other circuit. This reduces the active light sensing area on the chip. ie. less light. This is solved with microlenses now, but other issues like read out noise etc causes other issues. Not an issue for eveyday consumers, but for astrophotography any noise is the enemy #1.
They come in both mono and colour versions.