From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: November 9, 2005 11:06:46 AM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Camera for guiding


Dale;


On 8-Nov-05, at 6:22 PM, Dale J Martin wrote:


Hi Milton,


Thanks for your reply!


Any recommendations on a middle of the road camera (dollar wise)?


Your best bet for a "middle of the road camera " guiding camera is the Imaging Source's


http://www.1394imaging.com/en/products/cameras/firewire_mono/


"DMK 21AF04" $490USD, which has exposures to 30 seconds and people are hitting 17th to 18th magnitude with them. They are quite low noise (no fixed pattern EM noise) and have very good gain control.


After that I'd go with a "DMK 21F04" $369.00, which is a lower noise (no fixed pattern EM noise) camera with exposure times (via Astro IIDC) to 1 second.


At the lowest end are the Unibrain


http://www.1394store.com/eshop/product.asp?dept%5Fid=55&pf%5Fid=2050


Monochrome Cameras $159USD which also deliver exposure times (via Astro IIDC) to 1 second. But Unibrains are quite noisy (both pixel noise and EM coupling / signal noise with bright fixed edges) and you''ll be hard pressed to "guide" with them unless your guide star is 6th magnitude or brighter. However I have guided with the Unibrain using a 50mm aperture F/12 telephoto as a guide scope in urban conditions. You just have to be careful with your gains and use the "CCD Optimization" options with them which boosts brightness (and noise levels) a lot.


In all cases these Mono cameras ship without IR filters and you should leave them that way. For guiding, you want all the light you can get and it doesn't matter if it's visible light or IR light, just take everything you can.


Note that I'm being very specific here about stating this is for guiding. For planetary imaging it depends on what your tolerance levels are for doing post processing. I prefer using a color FireWire camera because it's nearly  "instant gratification" and I don't have to futz with Filter wheels, stacking multiple movies for each color, and then merging them altogether on each color channel. However monochrome cameras deliver better per pixel resolution and are more flexible in how you shoot your color filer images - for example shooting in the Far infrared for detail and then colorizing them in post processing, so their are tradeoffs.


HTH..


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

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