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

Date: August 12, 2005 10:53:28 AM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: just wishing

Milton:

I forgot to ask... how much does the flea cost? I'd be most interested in the 640x480

color version, as I'm not excited about changing filters frequently. I might also be

interested in the higher resolution version, but I'm worried about the pixels being too

small and less sensitive than the 640x480. Color there, too.

-Tim.

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

Hi Tim;

On 12-Aug-05, at 9:01 AM, Tim wrote:

Milton:

I'd be interested in hearing if you've tried your Flea with peltier

unit out on the sky.

Well we had 3 weeks of dry stable air, but I had no motor drive for

the scope (a 6 volt DC power supple went bad and fried the old one) .

My motor drive arrived Monday and we've been socked in with rain,

clouds and wind since then and the rest of August looks bad too.

So i haven't gotten back to it.

I think I'd like to "upgrade" from the Aplux soon, and maybe put

the Aplux on a finder or

my off-axis guider. Seems like the Flea is small enough that one

could even build a

"camera" for it using a Newt primary and place the Flea at the Newt

focus in place of the

secondary mirror. You'd need a good finder, though. And you'd

have to focus by moving

the primary or the secondary (Flea) support.

It could be used that way.

The Flea is basically a cube 3.1 x 3.0 cm / 1.22 x 1. 18 inches in

size and the FireWire connector comes out the back. So if you had a

thin flexible FireWire cable it would obstruct much at all..

Interesting sidebar: I shot Mars the other morning with the Aplux

right after imaging with

the ToUcam (about the same age camera) via my PC. The Aplux, with

Astro IIDC could

acquire so many more images so much faster than the ToUcam (and

they were less noisy),

I was impressed.

Glad to here it.

Sadly, the seeing has continued to be pretty lousy when I've had

the time to image. None

of the videos have produced decent results. And now the marine

layer has come back, so

we're socked in by the time Mars gets high enough to do anything.

Not much one can do with bad seeing or turbulence.. This year is so

far worse than normal and I have had maybe 1 night so far of medium

good air stability when capturing Jupiter images.

I live on a hilltop, though. Maybe I should try using my PADC

(herschel wedge gizmo) and

image Jupiter some more...

best,

-Tim.

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

wrote:

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...

www.outcastsoft.com

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