From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: July 15, 2005 4:48:09 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Re: just wishing

Hi Tim;

On 15-Jul-05, at 4:26 PM, Tim wrote:

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...)

A MacroFire or Quantifire TE cooled will be in the $3 to $5 K range. Cooled TE cameras that run at frame rates from like 20 minutes per frame to 60 fps are expensive.

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.

The interface they us isn't he problem USC VS USB 2 VS FireWire etc. The issue is they use very slow A/D converter and electronics which are more concerned about noise than throughput. The faster you move data, the more likely your going to get noise in the image from EM coupling.

I have USB 2 high speed cameras here and they are just as or more noisy than most of the FireWire cameras I have here too.

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!).

The DSI and other cameras that use the interlaced Sony CCD variants made for TV cameras are a PITA to work with if there is any motion in the images. If your doing interlaced video fields for TV they are fine, but not for full frame.

All the IIDC cameras I deal with use progressive scan CCD's so they don't have that problem and this is the main reason I don't like analog cameras much at all anymore.

TTYL..

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

Well It will help drop the noise levels somewhat and one doesn't want to go to far or you get condensation in humid places (running water and electronics ar enot a good mix) but during the winter here I don't need any cooling at all with an ambient temp of -40C.

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@outcastsoft.com