From: "mihalco" <mihalco@yahoo.com>

Date: January 18, 2010 5:25:58 PM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: New AstroIIDC user

Hi Milton,

I think the 800 x 600 mode is internally binned 2x2 in camera for Format 1, Mode 6 on the 20SO. (the ROI modes are slower, as you say).  It captures the same FOV as 1600 x 1200, and is more sensitive, so this seems to be the case.  I've run it with FlyCap2 on a PC, and it indeed does 25fps in both Y8 and Y16 mode. The 1600x1200 will do 15fps in Y8 and 7.5fps in y16.  The Scorpion tech ref also lists these speeds for these modes (page 23, Sec 6.1.1).  Just trying to see if AstroIIDC will keep up with it spooling out to disk so I can qualify, stack & align it later.  In any event, I'll try it out with the demo and let you know what happens.

Thanks Again!

Kurt

--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Milton Aupperle <milton@...> wrote:

Dear Kurt;

On 18-Jan-10, at 3:24 PM, mihalco wrote:

Hi Milton,

I recently picked up a Pt. Grey Scorpion SCOR-20SO (1600 x 1200  

mono) from the guy on EBay, and am about to give AstroIIDC a try  

(I'm waiting on a Firewire B to A cable).  From the feature list, it  

appears that it is possible to capture 16 bit video sequences and  

align and stack them.  Just want to confirm this is accurate before  

purchasing.  My main use will probably be with the 800x600, Y16 at  

25fps (Format 1, Mode 6) for Planetary.  Also, probably will try the  

1600 x 1200 Y16 at 7.5fps (Format 2, Mode 7) for solar.  I'll be  

running on a new Intel Macbook Pro - will AstroIIDC be able to keep  

up with these frame rates in Y16 out to disk?  Any other caveats I  

should be aware of?

Thanks,

Kurt Mihalco

Everything in the above is correct, except the frame rates.

Your not going to get 25 fps out of the Scorpion SCOR-20SO. The  

maximum frame rate is about 17 fps when ROI cropped to 800x600 size  

AND you set the CCD cropping to the upper left corner at 0,0. That CCD  

simply don't transfer a lot of data per scan line above 14.98 fps,  

even though we can allocate more bandwidth for the camera,

It's a FireWire 400 cameras so the maximum legal isochronous data  

rates is 80% of 400 mbps, roughly 38 megabytes per second. So you can  

run 1600 x 1200 in 8 bit at 15 fps or 1600 x 1200 in 16 bit at about  

10 fps. About the largest size you can go in 16 bit and achieve 15 fps  

is about 1150 x 1150 pixels (which is about 38 megabytes of video data  

per second or 2.2 gigabytes per minute of recording).

It does have small (4.4 micron) pixels, so running at higher frame  

rates for planetary likely won't be doable except with a light bucket  

scope (i.e 12" or larger aperture).

HTH..

Milton Aupperle