From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: November 15, 2007 5:56:50 PM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Which PGR camera

Hi Jim;

On 15-Nov-07, at 5:40 PM, jimchung2338 wrote:

Am thinking of a new planetary CCD from PGR.  Would the Scorpion 640x480 be the ultimate 

camera given its large 9um pixel size?

The Scorpions are on their way out and will be replaced with the Grasshoppers. The Grasshopper GRAS-03S3M has 9.9 um pixels and replaces the equivalent Scorpion model that your thinking about.

One nice thing is that they now support 14 bit and FireWire 800 to. They include a FW400 to FW800 cable so if you only have a FW400 port, you can use that instead of needing FW800. And they have a smaller form factor too.

As to ultimate camera, it's really a personal issue. The CCD grabs a lot more light than say a Flea does ( by about 200% more), but because it has bigger pixels you get less detail per pixel and therefore need to use longer focal lengths.

Hope That Helps..

Milton J. Aupperle