Planet Imager advice

[Kal]

Hi,

I'm thinking of stepping away from my meade LPI as my planetary imager and looking at the options available. The most obvious choice that immediately pops into my mind is Toucam, and I see that there are a couple of models out there now. There is the SPC900NC (http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/s/spc900nc_00/spc900nc_00_pss_eng.pdf), and the PCVC840K (http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/p/pcvc840k_00/pcvc840k_00_pss_eng.pdf) (Toucam Pro II). I'm sure people have used the Toucam Pro II before but the other camera I have never heard of. It is capable of 90fps (Vs 60 for the Toucam Pro II), I'm not sure about the other specs though. Does anyone have any experience/advice regarding these? Also, I see Mike using the DMK camera with great success. What are the advantages of the DMK over these Philips cameras?

The other piece of advise is what barlow I should be looking at using. I have a 10" F10 LX200R so should I be looking for a 2x, 2.5 3x, or a 5x barlow? At the moment I only have a 2x shorty barlow from meade that I used with my ETX, would this still be useful?

Thanks in advance for your advice! :)

[matt]

First of all ... ignore the fps. With ToUcams, most of the time you'll work with 5 or 10 fps. That's if you're imaging planets. Anything frame rates greater than that compress the data too much.

I have the 840K and it's a great little lunar and planetary webcam. In it's modified form (to allow longer exposures) it's also capable of quite decent DSO captures.

I've not used or compared the 900NC but some of the other guys have them and swear by them. It uses the same Sony CCD 1/4 inch chip as the later 840K Pro II's, but has slightly greater resolution due to a few more pixels (I think?).

Mike's DMK is a significant step up from a ToUcam in terms of $$$ and capability. It's also a monochrome camera which is an equal step up on the learning curve if you want to use red, green and blue filters with it to capture colour images.

Keep asking questions:)

[Kal]

OK, so the one advantage I thought it had (fps) is a negligable advantage, shows how much I know! :P

What are the main advantages over the LPI I am using? I've read many times the Toucam is a better product for imaging planets, the main reason I can see would be because at 10fps/15fps you can grab alot more raw data to work with. With the LPI even if I use short exposures it doesn't seem to capture more than a couple a second, meaning I need to spend alot more time gathering data to get the same end result. Are there any other obvoius advantages I would gain by moving to a Toucam?

[matt]

I think the major disadvantage of the LPI compared to the ToUcam is the LPI uses a CMOS sensor while the ToUcam has the more (low light) light sensitive CCD sensor.

[asimov]

The LPI has a CMOS sensor & the 2 webcams mentioned have CCD sensors. CCD sensors are more sensitive. The webcams take AVI's (movies) at IE: 10 frames per second, so if you capture for 1 minute you get 600 frames. You then (by using software) discard the blurry frames, keep the good ones & stack them into one image. I've owned all 3 imagers & I gave the LPI away free in a IIS competition we had awhile ago. The LPI did ok but it doesn't stand a chance against the webcams IMO.

[anthony2302749]

Hi Andrew

There is an alternative to the TuCam range of camera. Unibrian produces a firewire camera which will out perform any commercially available webcam when it comes to planetary imaging.

The Unibrain Fire-i Board Digital Camera offers: 400Mbps Firewire, Uncompressed VGA picture up to 30 fps, Sony ICX-098 1/4” CCD, progressive, 659(H)x494(V) square pixels (same as in the TuCam) etc.

These cameras are as good as the DMK's but at a fraction of the price. Unibrain produce 3 models; Colour, Colour-Raw and Monochrome and as of 19/10/06 the Fire-i Board Colour camera is $188 ex GST and the Fire-i Board Mono camera is $277 ex GST

They are avaliable from Turnkey Solution an Australian company. For more info goto
http://www.turnkey-solutions.com.au/cam_unbrain_fire.htm

Anthony

P.S. This is the second time that I have mention these camera on IIS. So people take note these are great camera and will make for a very fine planetary camera.

[matt]

Well..... let's hope everyone's listening and you never...ever....ever...have to say it again!:lol::P

By the way... why would one spend more than the cost of a ToUcam on the colour version when it has the same chip?

Can you buy a case for the camera board?

[Robert_T]

Hi Kal, I've used the LPI, Neximager, SPS900NC, and now a DMK mono. Now the DMK is a big stepup as would be any other firewire mono camera as you need to equip youself with filters and a wheel and the whole operation and post processing takes a huge step up in time and to some extent complexity.

The Nexmager is pretty similar to the Toucam. The SPS900NC is really just the Toucam 3 and is better than the neximager mainly for reasons of lower noise so you can push gain higher. Both are significantly better than the LPI for planetary as they use much more sensitive chips... the difference in end result is really quite astounding. The 900NC comes pretty close to the DMK in what you can achieve with it so would be my recommendation... ignore maximum frame rates as you will really only want to record at 10fps for bets results.

cheers,

[anthony2302749]

Really I am providing alternative to what is avaliable on the market. The advantage of the Fire-i camera over the TuCam is uncompress VGA. Like all commercially available webcam there is some type of compress occuring and this mean lost data. Having an uncompress VGA mean that you get the maximum data to process. Why do people use the DMK and like myself use the Lumenera because data means everything. There are other factor too but they have been discussed in passed treads, such as what is the best telescope for plantary imaging, difference between colour and mono etc. I am not here for the "Post Count" I am here to guide people to a reasonable conclusion.

I should also point out that the Fire-i have similar spec to the DMK but at a fraction of the price. The spec of both camera are avaliable at http://www.turnkey-solutions.com.au/index.html take the time have a look.

[matt]

No worries.

I'll check it out.

[anthony2302749]

Hi Matt

Just been looking at past treads, this one maybe of intrest as well.

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=10511&page=2

Regards

Anthony

[davidpretorius]

hey anthony, which would the best pick?

also as matt mentions, what case would you put it in???

[Robert_T]

Kal, by the way your 2x shorty barlow would be worth a try. You can increase he amplification factor by using a simple extension tube (say 50-100mm)beween the barlow and the camera. I recently sold my 2.5x powermate because I could get a better suited amplification (to suit most seeing conditions) using a simple 2x barlow (Vixen DX) with extension tube, resulting in something around 3x amplification - the 2.5x powermate actually decrease in amplification slightly with an extension.
cheers,

[Kal]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I'm leaning towards the PVCV840K, simply because it seems the be the best value imager available, and with the same CCD chip as the SPC900NC I don't think there is much point in spending more for the newer camera. I'd prefer to stick with USB as my notebook has it, plus it's the cheapest option available!!

How important would a UV/IR blocking filter be with this camera, is it considered a "must have" for planetary imaging?

[anthony2302749]

Hi David

My first choice would be the Fire-i Board Mono Camera due to the fact that the camera is going to be more sensitive then the bayer colour camera and when used with RGB filters you will be imaging in full resolution in each of the primary colours. Remember, an 8 bit monochrome camera will produce 256 level of grey, and when combined with RGB filters it make a difference. The colour camera would be my second choice.

As for case you don't need one, the board is open to the air which is good for cooling and secondly it is fitted with standard lens base of M12x0.5. Mogg Adaptors sells a universal web cam adapter which fits this lens base. The funny thing is, it is the sameone that will fit the Phillips SPC 900NC camera.

If we take the cost of the Fire-i Board Mono camera at $277 ex GST plus a manual filter wheel it should come to about +$800 not bad considering I paid $1400 for my Lumanera LU075C and I think the DMK sell for about +/-$800.

Anthony

[anthony2302749]

Big yes on the UV/IR blocking filter. I have a Astronomik UV/IR filter and plan to try it out, but with the smoke haze, clouds, rain, work, knocking down my observatory, moving house and building a new observatory etc. I hope I will get to use it one day, maybe when I retire

[davidpretorius]

i bought the baader ir/uv filter from telescopes and astronomy (http://www.telescopes-astronomy.com.au/toucam_philips.htm)

as you are taking the lens out and replacing with an open ended adapter, then having an ir/uv filter on the end constantly keeps the dust out.

The chip may be the same, but the on board processing is different for the 900nc. If you are going to be going after high resolution, then you need the best you can afford. I would recommend spending the extra $50 for 900nc.

Although we are not necessarily talking about long exposure, Asimov has done both long exposure on the 900nc and the 840k and it was chalk and cheese. Although they may be the same ccd chip, the 900nc is easily worth the extra $50.

[iceman]

The DMK's are cheaper now, I think you can get them for around AU$600. But you will need to spend about the same again on filter wheels + good quality filters.

Kal, the 840k is a good choice to start out with. You can upgrade the firmware to use the 900nc driver.

[netwolf]

Andrew, I think the Fire-I maybe worth it. We have access to the Toucam to try out and the Neximage already.

Anthony, I was under th impression it had less bits in the AD conversion than the DMK. I recall Bird pointing this out in one his posts. But I think that was the webcam version. Is the board model different?

Regards

[bird]

Hi Anthony,

I used a unibrain fire-i mono cam for a year or so as my main planetary camera, and it did produce some nice images. However it's worth pointing out that it's cheap for a good reason :-)

In terms of the features implemented in the camera it is significantly behind other cameras like those from Point Grey, ie no format7 support, no flexibility in framerate or exposures beyond the basic standard etc.

I also found a couple of problems with the firewire chipset from TI used in the fire-i camera, it only produces 127 shades per pixel instead of 256 due to a bug, and also there can be some brightness differences between left and right parts of the image (due to another, different bug).

Don't get me wrong - it's the cheapest firewire cam that I know of, and it's probably a good starters camera, but you'll want to upgrade to something better in another year or so.

regards, Bird