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

Date: April 30, 2006 10:10:08 AM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: Astro IDC and DMK 31AF03

Phil:

Impressive! A friend of mine had a Quantum 6 many years ago. I would consider it one of

the "big boys" as far as optical and mechanical quality is concerned, most definitely.

best,

-Tim.

--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Phil Houston <pkh111@...> wrote:

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