Hi petra, sorry for the late reply.
There are a couple of options if you want a better-than-ToUcam webcam for planetary work.
- DMK21AF04 colour or mono
- Lumenera 075 colour or mono
- Point Grey Research Flea2 colour or mono
- Point Grey Research Dragon Fly Express mono
They are all better than the ToUcam, due to being fast framerate, uncompressed data transfer, and sensitive CCD chips.
The mono versions are better than the colour versions, due to increased resolution on each colour channel. With a colour chip, you're only getting 1/3 of the 640x480 resolution on each channel. With a mono chip using R/G/B filters, you're getting the full resolution in each channel.
Of course it comes at the expensive of convenience. A colour chip means you capture once and process. A mono chip means you need a filter wheel (motorised or manual) as well as R/G/B filters, neither of which are cheap. You also have to capture 3 times for the one image - once with each filter. So time is against you.
3 times the processing as well, to make up the resulting colour image.
I chose the DMK due to cost - it's US$490 for the mono and about the same for the colour. I chose the mono. The Lumenera's come in at least twice that amount, but they are 12-bit cameras whereas the DMK is still only 8-bit.
The PtGrey Flea2 cameras are also good, 12-bit like the Lumenera, but still US$300 more expensive than the DMK. I was wanting to get the Flea2, but couldn't afford the extra, especially since i have to buy a filter wheel (I'm getting a manual one for now) plus colour filters.
If money was no object, I'd probably get the Lu mono (like Damian Peach and others use) or the DragonFly Express (like Bird uses) or the Flea2.
But you have to justify to yourself that the cost of the camera is going to be more than the cost of your scope.. at least in my case
