Posts Made By: Oliver Pettenpaul

Hi all,

here's the firstlight of my DMK at the moon. Conditions have been good to image Bousingault, one of my favorite craters, an the limb area around it. Libration has been nice to show some craters like Hale and Ganswindt(almost).
Seeing has been fair to good, calm local seeing, moderate winds, slight jetstream influences that could be tackled by collecting 6000 frames per capture.



Best wishes,
Oliver

Hi Paul,

without having used a ATK-1HS I guess it's identical to a ToUcam Pro with ICX098BL b/w CCD for lunar and planetary imaging. The long exposure capabilities and active cooling are unimportant for planetary work unless we image through extreme UV or IR passfilters (needing very good seeing).
Has anyone seen the PCBA of an ATK ? Is it a modified ToUcam ?
For planetary work I find monochrome USB2 or firewire cams much more interesting. The high possible framerates and data transfer without compression losses are very promising to image fast rotating planets like Jupiter and Mars and to detect cloud features on Saturn. The Lumenera LU-75 that Paolo uses should be one of the best planetary cams available (http://www.lumenera.com/industrial/lu075.html). It features a 10Bit output, very high frame rates and a more sensitive 1/3" sensor compared to a 1/4" CCD (although the 7.4µm^2 pixel size requires a x1,32 focal length extension to reach the same image scale than with 5.6µm^2 pixels). Also interesting are the ImagingSource DMK21F04 used be Wesley (http://www.1394imaging.com/products/cameras/) and the Fire-I monochrome board (http://www.unibrain.com/1394_products/fire-i_board_cam/fire-i_board_camera.htm) - both Firewire. I just bought the Fire-I mono board but had no time so far to prepare it for imaging or test it at the scope :S
The only drawback of the DMk or Fire-I should be the longest exposure time of a real ~1/31s. The ToUcam delivers a true 1/5s at the "1/25s" setting and 5FPS for comparison. A hardware mod for the Fire-I is known to couple the exposure time directly to the framerate...

Best regards & clear skies,
Oliver

Hi Dodi,

absolutely stunning for a 6/10 Seeing, great work! Nice Encke capture, very detailed cloud bands, your C9.25 seems to perform superb. Can't wait to work with mine under good seeing conditions, unfortunately I had no luck with seeing yesterday evening :S

Clear skies & best regards,
Oliver

Hi Paulo,

wow, a really good result, amazing for f/48 and mediocre seeing conditions Did you use any filter for the capture ?
Good to see that your C9 performs as it should now ! I should try my birthday present (C9.25) with my 5x Powermate next time skies are clear, your result is very encouraging.

Best regards & Clear skies,
Oliver

Hi Alan,

that's a beautifull image! Seeing the lit and unlit side both with details and texture in front of the deep black space gives a great feeling of deepness. Very nice.

Best regards & clear skies,
Oliver

Hi Wes,

the rille is crisp and clean, the mountaintops show nice tones without burnt out highlights - that's a very good image 8)

Clear skies!
Oliver

Ok, I've been pointed into the right direction, it's the Apollo 17 landing area, shame on me

Cheers, Oliver

Ok, here's the image again with labels of the most important features:



Clear skies!
Oliver

Great result especially considering the conditions Ed! Nice color balance & details, even the C-ring is captured very well for the transparency and moon.

Clear skies!
Oliver

Hi Alan,

that's a wonderfull result 8O Is there even some structure in the C-Ring ? Great to see how good your new setup performs!

Best regards & clear skies,
Oliver