lMAGING SOURCE CAMERAS

[mick pinner]

Would it be possible for one or two of the camera gurus to give a quick run down pros/cons of the lmaging Source DBK41 mono/colour cameras. thanks.

[[1ponders]]

Hmmm. There is the old argument between colour and mono with filters, colour won't give the same resolution/colour channel as mono with filter. As I understand it, if you are using a colour camera only one in 4 pixels is recording the red of the image, same for the blue and 1 in 2 for the green. This effectively limits the resolution for each colour channel. Using the mono with filter you are able to get full resolution of the chip/scope combo for the whole chip.

The downside is with Jupiter for example, with a mono you are limited to about 35 sec / channel (assuming 5 sec to switch between colours) and only 25 if you use a luminance whereas with the colour you can go the whole 120sec for exposure. This is a downer for the mono as the 41s can only capture at a max rate of 15 fps.

What are you looking at imaging with it Mick. If you are thinking planets then the 21 or even the 31 would be a better option.

[Dennis]

Hi Mick

I have a DMK 21AF04 (mono no IR filter) and a DBK 21AF04 (colour no IR filter). Last week I plugged them into the Mewlon 180 and pointed them at Jupiter which was being buffeted by the jet stream.

On screen, the mono image was easily more contrasty, punchy and pleasing to the eye. I could record at 30fps at 1/30 sec exp with Gain around 650.

The colour image was grainier (I had to increase Gain to 850) and I could only record at 15fps and 1/15 sec. The image appeared less contrasty and less detailed.

Disclaimer:
This was a casual test and I didn’t take notes.
I didn’t save the files (seeing was horrid) so I cannot comment on how the final results might have looked once the avi’s had been processed via Registax, etc.

Cheers

Dennis