First light Flea3 - Aristarchus and Letronne/Gassendi
EQ6, SPX350 F22 with 3xTV Barlow, Flea3, Astronomik IR742nm filter.
Had a try with the tiny new cam in 8bit mode as I was unsure of 16bit as I only had SER option with no AVI so I assume this is what I would use with 16bit. I think with the Moon 16bit may be overkill?
In IR I was amazed how bright this long focal length image was in IR especially near the terminator so as seeing was average I imaged with the IR filter and got pretty decent results considering the breeze moving things occassionally - clearly better than DMK!!!
I had a go at Neptune at F4.5 and got Triton easily but will the Flea3 do long exposure for Uranus moons, don't do this much but just wondered?
FIT files are 16bit and are one of the possible file types that can be captured with FireCapture..
You can load the FIT files into Birds ninox program which among other things will centre, crop & do a quality estimate of the raw files.
I am most keen to see your future images with th Flea3, i've been contemplating one and think i might go there, would you say your happy so far with the camera in comparison to previously used camera?
Thanks for comments as average seeing should not produce these smooth reasonably detailed results with DMK at that FL F22 so I am pleased just waiting for good seeing.
PGR did not give me an express card but I already ordered a Unibrain Firecard 800e from 1394 store in US, they sell powered hubs and longer 9pin cables. I read you can get a card from PGR if you insist by email with the order as some of the staff are responsive to this request by astronomers and others are not - Dorothy Milde deals with sales in Germany I think but if you get Jasmine Zhu in Canada when your order goes through she is better to deal with so you should make it clear that you insist on having a card for laptop use - PGR want happy customers.
Frame rates are variable on my 2GHz Inspiron.
at 8bit full res or 450pix ROI=59+74fps
at 16bit full res or 450pix ROI=41+56fps but I did get 77fps with ROI at one session.
16bit at 350pix ROI=83fps.
If you go into Task Manager - Resource Monitor you can see how hard your CPU is working and mine was at 65-90% averaging 75% so I should be getting higher frame rates?
Others with same CPU speed have said they get 50-90fps, I tried switching off other applications including internet and downloading files on a powered external USB2 HD at 7200rpm (USB3 HD may be better) but did not get obviously faster rates? Firecapture uses Java which slows things down but I get the feeling Torsten's freeware will probably improve (hopefully adding long exposure) along with frame rates so the Flea3 is an investment and way better than DMK even at 8bits but 40fps is good enough for learning with and when ROI goes down to 250pix square I get 106fps. Only downside is the big thick grey wire!
