Firewire Camera - any experience

Hi Guys,

As an inexpensive toe in the water in the field of CCD imaging, does anyone here have any experience of this camera?

www.astronomycameras.com/en/products/fir...s/color/dbk21af04as/

If not, what's the best approach to this for similar money?

Clear skies,

Paul.

Hi Paul,

I may be missing something but that does seem a high price for what is essentially a webcam(ok, it can do long exposures, but you probably don't want that for shooting AVIs) Do a search on eBay for webcams and you should find very similar spec models for next to nothing. 640x480 x 60fps colour are readily available and I'd be surprised if you had to pay more than about 20 euros. Don't forget you still have to remove the IR filter. I'd rather bungle that job on a cheepo camera than one that cost 290 lids!

Phil.

Paul/Phil,

The DMK series of cameras along with the Lumenera/Infinity are the best weapons of choice for high-power high-resolution imaging of the moon and planets.

This is so since the 60 fps is real thanks to the firewire interface and with absolutely NO video compression. However, I would shy away from the colour version and pursue the monochrome offering since it leads to better results when used in conjunction with filters (for the planets) or as is for lunar imaging.

The monochrome version is higher in price but worth it. I would also suggest you look at pricing in the US since the difference is not negligible.

I am also looking at getting the DMK (monochrome) camera and I am sure it will yield excellent results from the first night out.

I just recieved mine yesterday (THE Monochrome!) and so far, love it....very sensitive compared to my old SPC900NC webcam Makes a great guide cam.

From the above pics.................i'm thinking this cam is worth its weight in gold.

Doubled with a high apeture scope (i know the above pics were taken with an 80mm scope) it could it seems give mind blowing results.

The sharpness of detail is OUTSTANDING. Just imagine what those pics would look like in colour and with bigger apeture.

I'm in the process of deciding on a good webcamming system to invest in..............so far the leader is the Phillips Toucam. This one is now neck and neck with it.

I LOVE the sharpness of detail.

The above pics were taken with a monochrone version? How much is a full colour version or the same cam?

Any links would be very appreciated.

I actually think the color version is cheaper...somewhere around $350 US (mono is $390)

The thing is...people get the mono because the CCD doesn't have to divide its work on each color so the images are very crisp and detailed as well as more sensitive to light (good if your using it to guide)

If I had red, green and blue filters, i'd slap one on at a time, take a red bunch of frames, same with green and blue and then process them together to make whats called a LRGB image...typically far better quality than a color image. If you buy the color cam, one can't expect to have the sharpness equal to its mono varient. The trade-off of course is using LRGB, it takes 4x the effort as you have to take the 3 colors, and the "L" or luminesence series. The most effort would be in the Luminesence frames such as this B/W...it provides ALL the detail...the RGB frames only give color information that would be applied to this.

BTW, the philips is a good webcam...prolly the best choice if you go that route...I use one myself. That B/W of saturn was my first try using the mono cam...my BEST color is this using the philips: its far less detailed with some color aberrations etc so the differences in B/W and color are obvious if one can get saturn like the B/W on a first try