From: Alan Friedman <alan@greatarrow.com>

Date: November 18, 2005 11:18:17 AM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Re: Unibrain Adaptor

On Nov 16, 2005, at 9:54 PM, Duane wrote:

I'm 20 days into my 30 day evaluation on the DMK camera. I'm probably going to send it 

back as I'm frustrated with it (and its probably not its fault). I might try their color version 

or I might switch to another camera. The DMK is $590 if I keep it.

Hi Duane - 

I do not think you will get help with detail from the color camera. There are real advantages on nights of fair seeing to using just a portion of the visible light spectrum. Do some tests on mars (or maybe even betterm, the moon) comparing streams through your filter sets and then with no filter (or a clear filter) and compare the detail recorded. From my experience, the red and sometimes the green filtered images will be significantly sharper. My luminance images are almost always made by combining these two images. 

From my location there might be one or two nights a year when the seeing is stable enough for the greater light throughput without a filter to be used to advantage - and chances are I will have my kids dance recital that night.

If you are comfortable with the RGB routine and don't mind the extra work, the B&W camera will give you better results than a color camera. You might want to consider the 21AF04 to save a little money. The detail will be a function of the seeing, aperture, optics (in that order) with processing experience thrown in there somewhere.

my very personal .02 of course!

Alan