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

Date: November 8, 2005 5:33:27 PM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: Camera for guiding

Dale, Milton:

I was going to chime in here and say "me too" or something along those lines about the

DSI (because I have one too, the Pro), but frankly it's not that great a camera. For DSOs, it's

okay, but hot pixels coming and going during an image acquisition sequence have made it

difficult for me to get decent DSO images with it, even when acquiring darks just prior to

taking the images (and giving the camera a half our or so to thermally equillibrate after

plugging it in). And for planets, the interlaced CCD makes hash out of the individual

frames if there's any seeing motion at all between reading out the interlaced frames.

I have the Point Grey Research color Flea camera , and it in combination with Astro IIDC is

much better for imaging DSOs than the DSI is (admittedly, at more than double the price),

and that's with the bayer filters on the chip. In practice, for DSO imaging, I find Astro IIDC

functions very similar to Autostar Envisage, but I find the noise reduction and image

stacking to work much better. I've not done a lot of deep sky imaging with it, because I

got it mostly for planetary imaging on the Mac, but I'm very happy with the combination. I

may add a grayscale Pt Grey camera, perhaps the Scorpion, for greater sensitivity, but for

now I'm having fun with the Flea.

...and Milton: You said before that your Flea gets quite warm? Mine doesn't appear to get

more than marginally noticeably warmer than ambient to the touch, even during long

periods of use. Could they have improved the performance between production dates?

best,

-Tim.

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

Hi Dale;

On 8-Nov-05, at 8:19 AM, Dale J Martin wrote:

Hi folks,

I purchased a Meade DSI and and a PC laptop but I hate the AutoStar

Suite software and would really like to stay on a Macintosh. I see

that the Meade DSI is not a supported camera for Astro IIDC (will it

ever be?).

Very unlikely.

First off Meade has to provide information on their low level

interface for talking to the camera over USB. They have not done so

and are not likely to do it.

The next hurdle is the number of sales that are needed to balance the

cost of doing all the research, development and testing. It's

exceedingly doubtful I would ever bring it to the Mac as there simply

are too few Mac Astro people out there to make it even remotely

profitable.

The only reason Astro IIDC exists is because the cost of developing

the base FireWire and camera interfaces was paid for from sales of

the Framework to industrial clients. And the only reason it's

proceeding is because of Microscopy sales, which now make up about

70% of all purchasers and that market is growing, not astronomy related.

I already purchased the Astro IIDC software and have an

iBot but the image quality is very poor.

The iBot's never were a great camera for anything except very bright

objects, like the moon, solar or maybe bright planets.. They used the

older AK series of CCD's which are at least 30% less sensitive than

the current CCD models. They also are long discontinued and Orange

Micro has shut it's doors.

I have a LDX75 mount with a

SN-6, I am planing on purchasing a Orion 80ED and want to get a

camera for guiding either scope and am looking for recomendations.

For Guiding go with a Monochrome camera. They have more sensitivity

(no Bayer Filter).

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...