Another toy first light....

[Peter Ward]

Having grown weary of the time it takes me to mosaic the Sun with my current camera... I finally decided an upgrade was necessary.

The Point Grey Grasshopper Express, mono 6.0Mp, 1394B spec seemed to fit the bill.

Getting a Firewire 800 card that worked proved a little hit and miss.

My first experience was plug and no-play.

It took some time, but happily the 1394B hardware port and software problems got solved in the end.

My AP155 has just a tad too much focal length to squeeze the entire solar disk on to the chip, that said, despite this image (http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery180.html) being taken during some pretty ordinary seeing, the results look very promising.

[gbeal]

I've lusted over one of them for a while now, but the price tag gets the most attention.
I can see some stunning images coming from yours soon though, congrats.
Gary

[Peter Ward]

Thanks Gary, yep, the price is a little steep, but...if you want to make an omelette, you gotta' to break a few eggs.

[Paul Haese]

Working up a deal with PGR at present myself for either this camera or the 2.8mp.

Nice effort Pete. Furry looking sun.:thumbsup:

[Matt Wastell]

That is great! Looking forward to more!

[Peter Ward]

Thanks, fingers crossed tomorrow a.m. will be clear and stable.



Ta. I still find the 1394B interface to be a little painful, (the buffer fills pretty quickly) hence if you are looking at 2.8mp and can get that chip in USB 3.0
it would be the way to go IMHO.

[Paul Haese]

Yeah thought of that option already. Mainly because the 800 adapter slot is not being offered in most laptops now. USB3 would be preferable but the cameras available just don't quite fit the specs needed.

I use the 1394 at present with the Flea3. Yes you have power to the adapter and that can be a pain. It took me quite a while to get decent power adapter.

[Paul Haese]

CMOS is also an issue, hence for now the fire wire option is the only choice.

[Star Catcher]

Hi Peter
Congrats on the new toy! Nice image and the camera sky coverage and pixel count will make life for full solar disk imaging a pleasure rather than a pain :)
Ted

[Peter Ward]

Thanks Ted. Just finished another session today, and am quite impressed with the new camera.

Data bottlenecks are my new problem :rolleyes:, as 300 frames = 1 Gig of data
Hence am now wondering if a fast external SSD might do the trick...