From: "Tim" <tjp314@pacbell.net>

Date: January 8, 2006 1:57:28 AM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: 60+ second exposures with Flea

Last  night I connected pins 1 and 2 by stripping about 1/8" of

plastic off the ends of a 1" length of a wire tie, and sticking them

into the hollow pins.  I didn't want to bend them, because they look

too fragile.  

Connected the camera up to the Megrez 80, and experimented with

exposures up to 5 minutes.  Last night, high clouds didn't go away

until about 12:30am, so I didn't get much imaging done.  I was

shooting the Eskimo Nebula through the C-8 with the ST2000XM, and the

losmandy mounting brackets for the Megrez aren't adjustable, so the

two cameras aren't boresighted.  So I have a starfield with the Eskimo

at one edge of the frame so far.

But the camera does well above 1 minute exposures, so long as you

don't set the brightness value too high.

-Tim.

--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, "Tim" <tjp314@p...> wrote:

Milton:

Very cool!  I will try that when I get home.

-Tim.

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

Hi Tim;

For the Flea camera, you need to connect Pins 1 and 2 on the

included  

round Hirose HR25 Male 8 pin connector. The connector has 2 sets of  

pins on it, the very fine ones that fit into the back of camera  

socket and the coarser pins on the other side that you will connect  

up. The pin numbers are shown in the PGR pamphlet that was included  

with the camera (see back page entitled "Camera Interface"). It

looks  

like this:

N

P1

P2 P3 P4

P5 P6 P7

P8

The N is the "notch" in the ring, so you know how the connector is  

oriented. The P1 to P8 indicates the pin number. You connect P1 to

P2  

and then check the "Allow extended PGR camera exposure times" item

in  

the Astro IIDC Preferences, which tells Astro IIDC to implement a  

Bulb type mode for long exposures of up to 60 minutes.

Their is only about 1.5 mm of distance between the pins, so you can  

either drip some solder on them to connect them up (which is what I  

did) or bend them over so they make physical contact.

HTH..

Milton J. Aupperle

President

ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting

Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist

#1005 - 815 14th Avenue. S.W.

Calgary Alberta Canada T2R0N5

1-(403)-229-9456

milton@o...

www.outcastsoft.com

On 6-Jan-06, at 12:47 PM, Tim wrote:

Milton:

Now that I have an SBIG camera that can autoguide my Tak and  

Nexstar mounts, I'd like to

take images longer than 60 seconds with the Flea on a Megrez 80  

piggyback on the main

scope.  I remember you once said I'll need to solder a couple pins  

together, but I want to

make sure I know which ones before I do that.  Is the info on your  

website somewhere, or is it

in the Pt Grey Documentation?