From: Phil Houston <pkh111@knology.net>

Date: April 25, 2006 6:12:45 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Astro IDC and DMK 31AF03

Astro IIDC Group,

I'm currently evaluating an Imaging Source model DMK 31AF03 camera and am using Astro IIDC software, so I thought my comments might be appropriate here. First of all let me state that the reason I ordered this camera was because of this outstanding software. I have used cheap webcams for imaging the Moon and planets for a while with marginal satisfaction and decided to try something different. This month I have had a chance to compare the DMK camera images to images taken with my digital camera (Nikon 880) and an iBot and ToUcam. I have found the image quality to be as good as the digital camera and about a thousand times easier. The ToUcam did not have the use of Astro IIDC and the other programs were difficult for me to optimize. I think I'm going to keep it.

Being a newbe to Astro IIDC, and even after reading the manual, I determined that the best quality images of Jupiter were captured using the planetary gross alignment setting with no vertical or horizontal fine alignment and to scale frames at 4x, at least with this camera. I know it's slow but it made the images much better. The lunar images I captured looked good with lunar-solar alignment and both horiz .and vert. fine alignment at 2x, but I haven't done much testing yet and probably won't until ver. 3.0 is available next month. (Can't wait)!

I am using an old Quantum Six Mak, f/15 with a Barlow lens, and was concerned that the sensitivity of the camera would be too low for planetary imaging at a decent scale, but was pleased to be able to run at 15 fps with moderate gain. Since this is a monochrome camera, color can be added using a webcam or filters. I have tried both and found that both worked well however, a filter wheel might be easier if you have to disassemble things in order to change cameras. The Quantum scope has two ports and a quick rotation of a mirror is all that's needed to switch to the webcam. I like the filter wheel best for quality and control. Filtering lowers the light available at the camera but a 7.5 fps rate handles it. The Moon is bright enough for 30 fps.

The Moon has become my subject of choice recently and the DMK31 has a format of 1024 x 768 and a smaller pixel size than the DMK21 series so I thought that might be an advantage, although the sensitivity might be a little less. I haven't checked.

With only a 6" scope, I'm definitely not one of the "big boys" in high res imaging but take a look at the images I've taken with the DMK 31AF03 camera and see what the camera can do.

http://www.knology.net/~pkh111/astrophotos/Q6moon2.html

http://www.knology.net/~pkh111/astrophotos/Q6jupiter.html

Milton, thank you for writing the software.

Phil