From: Alan Friedman <alan@greatarrow.com>

Date: November 30, 2007 12:20:40 PM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: larger chip cameras

Hi Tim,

I purchased a DMK 41AF02 camera from TIS. The pixels are a little smaller (about 20%) than the 640x480 - but the loss of sensitivity is quite noticeable for planetary imaging since we are always pushing against the limits for fast shutter and frame rate vs. the best signal possible. The big plus for me in lunar imaging (in addition to my comment in the previous post) is the reference it gives to have a bigger piece of lunar real estate on the chip. I always wound up with some nasty voids in my mosaics and craters that would take me hours to identify - both due to the challenges of a tiny FOV. 

The 41AF02 lists somewhere between $870 currently. 

cheers,

Alan

On Nov 30, 2007, at 1:04 PM, Tim wrote:

Hi Alan:

What larger chip camera did you/are you referring to?

One thing I've considered is the monochrome 5mpixel Grasshopper
camera. The pixels are small, so I'm thinking that a barlow might not
even be necessary for planetary imaging (just "ROI" around the
planet). And there are enough of them and the chip is big enough
(2/3" format) that they could be binned 2x2 or even 4x4, and still
have enough pixels to take decent size deep sky images.

Problem is, the 5MP Grasshopper is a $3500 camera, which is about what
I paid for my ST2000. And the grasshopper isn't cooled.

.