Firewire Camera - any experience

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.

I for one would not sacrifice sharpness over colour. As you say in so many words "The colour can be added later".

I'll be getting the colour version in the States in March.
(I'm too lazy for filter wheels!)
From what I can see (and from a test done by Pete Lawerence in TS@N Mag)
they are snapping on the heals of the Skynux and Lumenara .

I use the webcam (toucam) extensively on the planets and one of its seriously limiting factors is its low sensitivity at high frame rates, this is an issue when trying to pump up the barlow power and the image dims, this is where these DMK cameras really shine!
Given the lack of imaging opportunities in this country and the usually bad seeing (jet stream), I'd go for the colour camera also, I just cant see myself capturing 4 AVIs for every resultant image I want.
I'd select the 640x480 version of the camera as it does the full 60fps, the bigger chipsets do not, for planetary imaging the smaller chip is not an issue, I'd use the canon for the moon.

As for firewire over USB2, I cant think of any advantage of one over the other in this application, ideas anyone ?

PS, would you not want the IR cut off filter ??

I'd be on the same page as Dave for exactly the same reasons.

As for firewire over USB.
Firewire should give you less dropped frames etc.

I'd also think the IR cut filter would be needed.,
This is after all is essentially a Planetary / Moon camera no?

hang on, doesn't the firewire version require an external power supply, the usb camera doesn't !!!, that seals it for me, usb all the way.
Needing an external PSU means you need mains power in the field.

Frank...I have no experience with the color and surely its much less sensitive than the mono so I wonder how much less?.....if one's interested in planetary imaging, I also use the philips SPC900NC ($55USD) so I wonder if that's just not a better option? If you'll ever consider needing a guider cam, then the DMK would be better with its longer exposure times.

My image with the green box was on the philips cam, not the best but with a 600mm FL 80mm APO, its not bad..hard to get good magnification though. Using photoshop, I combined some RGB data from an old Saturn I had to the monochrome luminesence DMK image I took for this end: