From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: September 27, 2010 11:01:29 AM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Re: Jupiter Image

Hi Tim;

On 27-Sep-10, at 8:03 AM, doobisary wrote:

Hi Milton:

I thought I'd replied yesterday but my internet connection was flaky and it musta notta gotten in!

Yahoo is wonkier than ever, so no surprise there on messages getting dropped.

Anyway, I had posted my thoughts about color versus mono cameras.  I've only used my Scorpion for RGB imaging a couple of times now, as I only fairly recently purchased an Orion manual filter wheel.

I have an Orion 5 slot Manual Filter Wheel too.

Problem I have with LRGB imaging is that my old Newts don't have enough backfocus for all the "stuff" in the camera assembly.  My 8" f/7 Cave doesn't even have enough backfocus to reach focus with the Scorpion by itself at prime focus.  It does reach focus with a barlow in place, though.  But to use the filter wheel, I have to put the wheel between the barlow and the camera, which gives me too large an image scale for the seeing.

If you need back focus, can't you add some extensions to increase the distance? Or is it "Inward Focus" you need?

I much prefer color camera imaging of planets, and am excited to see your results with the Chameleon and the exhad ccd.  I've been wondering whether to buy one of those versus a mono or color flea3.  Your results have me thinking I might go for a color Chameleon first, and then try the mono flea3 when I can afford it.

Well the Chameleon come in at $375 USD, where as the Flea 3 are ~ $670 or so (these are last time I checked numbers - get a Quote to be sure).

You won't get as fast a frame rate from the Chameleon (even with ROI, it tops out at about 24 fps for 640x480). And they do run warm too, because they are in a plastic case. When I was shooting temperature dropped down to +4°C ambient and the camera internal temperature was 28°C.

On a side note, if your ordering a new PGR camera from PGR and you've already bought the $100 "Kit",  make sure you tell them you've already bought one of their Kits. I was told that if you do this, you don't have to buy another Kit going forward. Some time in the future the $100 "Kit" will be optional, but I don't know when.

HTH..

Milton Aupperle