From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: December 8, 2009 5:08:19 PM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] cold weather..

Hi Jim;

On 8-Dec-09, at 4:30 PM, Jim Chung wrote:

Hi Milton,

That's a wonderful shot of M1.  I'm curious though, isn't the price of

the Grasshopper rather close to that of a used SXVH9 which I believe

has the same ccd.

It does have the same EXHad CCD.

I'm always in favour of home brewed solutions

unless it become economically unviable.

A Used Grasshopper would be cheaper than as SXVH9 too, if you could find one, just like the Scorpions are now cheaper than the Flea 2 models.

Your also forgetting that the  Grasshopper runs at 15 fps sustained rate in 16 bit mode (30 fps in 8 bit) at 1344x1036 pixels, weighs a few ounce (it's basically the size of about 1.5 Flea cameras)

http://www.outcastsoft.com/AstroImages/Cameras.jpg

and has 2 firewire 800 ports. It also has a user selectable ROI and I can use it for planetary (especially for Venus in UV or Mercury in IR), solar, lunar and DSO, so it makes a great but expensive multipurpose camera.

To simplify my cabling and avoid the issues I had last night, I'm going to look into getting a short 18" to 36" FW800 cable and run it to it  the FW 400 Flea or TIS mono guiding  camera. Then I won't need 2 long cables and can daisy chain the second short one. I have to work out the distances with a piece of string from the OAG to the back of the Grasshopper to make sure it's not too short or long and interferes with things.

TTYL..

Milton Aupperle