From: "Tim" <tjp314@pacbell.net>

Date: July 15, 2005 4:26:51 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: just wishing

Milton:

Well, I'm betting the Quantifire is "expensive" by my reckoning! ;oD (I think the SX

MX25C, though very attractive otherwise, is "too expensive", and the MX8C is "not cheap"

but doable if...)

I poked around on the Starlight Xpress site, and I'm still surprised that with USB 2, their

cameras still take seconds to download a frame. I think I figured that assuming the MX8C

(4M pixels) binned 4x4. But the nice thing is that those eensy pixels wouldn't be so eensy

binned, and a .5Mpixel square camera with those color pixels binned ought to be sweet.

On paper, that is.

My HX5 downloaded just a bit too slow for my tastes, even with USB 1. The Meade is fast

enough (though it's not anywhere near as fast as even the ToUcam), but the interlacing

ruins most of the images if there's any seeing motion at all (and for me, there has been!).

So, I'll be very interested in your cooling experiments with the Flea!

-Tim.

--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Milton Aupperle <milton@o...> wrote:

Hi Tim;

Oops, I hit the send button before I was done.

On 15-Jul-05, at 2:44 PM, Tim wrote:

-------------------SNIP

I'm still interested in what Milton might recommend for planets/

DSOs, assuming that a

firewire camera could do both well. I never got a response about

my question regarding

the one cooled microscope camera on the list of supported cameras

on Milton's website -

the Quantifire.

If your talking about exposures less than 10 minutes uncooled, the

Flea Color 640x480 camera is pretty decent for the money your

spending. I ran some 10 minute exposure tests with the camera wrapped

in a heavy bath towel under my desk, the gains set to zero and the

dark current and amp glow noise noise level was low enough that it

could be taken out with dark frame. All you need to do is modify the

supplied hiruse trigger connector by connecting pins 0 and pin 1

(solder them or just bending them over so they touch) and Astro IIDC

will allow up to 60 minute exposures.

With that $45 CDN peltier Cooler unit I bough (I also added a $15 CDN

Pentium CPU Heat sink and Fan to the hot side) up attached to it, it

can keep the camera and electronics in the 10 degree C / 50 F range,

when in dead air air temp is 30 C / 86F. With cooling off, the camera

is running at about 45 C / 113 F and that brings the noise level up a

lot.

And speaking of crappy weather, June was the wettest month in Calgary

history (120+ years or so) and now that it's finally cleared up with

dark clear skies and no 80 km winds, my motor drive has packed it in :(.

TTYL..

Milton J. Aupperle

President

ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting

Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist

#1005 - 815 14th Avenue. S.W.

Calgary Alberta Canada T2R0N5

1-(403)-229-9456

milton@o...