Hi, I'm new to the forum and no doubt this question is always asked
Ice has hinted that he is going DMK camera. Lester has a colour DMK.
At the moment, my 1250 focal length 10" newt with a powermate @ 7.7x plus the 6mm focal length of my toucam means I am imaging @ f38.5. Damian Peach seems to be at around f39 plus some resampling.
At the moment, i have very little room on a 640 x 480 chip of the toucam with Jupiter. In ppmcentre, i cut it at 440px instead of the default 400px.
Bird seems to have gone smaller size on his firewire, but more detail is present
I am in a quandry for next years Jupiter. Short of getting a 10" or 12" mewlon ( in my dreams ) or c14 (in my dreams again ), i am thinking of building a new aluminium OTA that is easily transportable. I have the dob driver II so tracking is not an issue. But what will the DMK's dictate to be the best ratio and diameter for planetary?
Is 16" fraught with hassles??? Is 10" at f5 and a DMK as good as you can get it. Should I try and mimic a c14 and go 14" but not at f10???
Why do you mention C14 instead of Meade SCT14. The Meade is about half the price of the Celestron. Have you seen better results with the C14? I haven't!
purely from what a few planetary imager guys (not iis) have said ie the 9.25 vs meade 10" and also that Damian Peach recently went to barbados with a c14?
Probably, the best images from Australia this year have been from a c14 and a toucam in melbourne. Maurice contributes to the ALPO projects overseas. Lovely work
What telescope/camera do you need to do planetary imaging? There are probably many combinations that can be used. Meade, Celestron, Obsession, Takahashi, ToUcams, Lumenera, DMK, Point Grey, colour or RGB the list goes on.
Any combination of the above mention equipment will achieve that goal. What will make the difference between an average image and award win one is technique. You may wish to purchase the same equipment as used by Damien Peach but by buying such equipment will not mean instant success.
Technique is the key to success; it starts with the choice of mount, then optic, then camera (colour or monochrome), chip size, pixel size, sensitivity, dynamic range, frame rate, filters, collimation, temperature, weather conditions, processing etc.
I have been imaging the planets since 2001 with varying success and have learnt a lot over the years. I have been using a 10” LX200 but am now leaning towards a larger scope preferable the 14” Meade LX200R, not because it is a Meade, but because of the aperture. Large aperture, more light gathering area, better resolution and brighter image. Which means I can turn down the gain, hence less noise in the final processed image. Also while the Lumenera colour camera that I am currently using is great, there are limitations with using a colour camera mainly due to the fact that you are not able to image in full 640x480 resolutions per each colour channel. Again I am now leaning towards a monochrome camera plus RGB filter wheel. The three things that I will be looking for in my next camera will be “Frame rate” “resolution” “Pixel Size” and “Dynamic Range”
I have look at and am considering the DMK camera which has a frame rate of 60fps, resolution of 640x480, pixel size of 5.6 and a dynamic range of 10 bit and are well priced at about A$700. But I like the Lumenera which has the similar specification as the DMK except that it has a pixel size of 7.4 and a better dynamic range of 12 bit but is double in price. The Lumenera looks to be the win as it offer better dynamic range than the DMK.
Why consider “dynamic range” well it is all about raw data. A 8 Bit monochrome camera will produce 256 level of grey, 10 bit - 1024 level of grey and 12 bit – 4096 level of grey. By increasing the dynamic range, image quality improving.
Finally, I took the time to scour the net to fine example of images taken with both Celestron 11”and Meade 10” to see if there is a difference between competing brands (see attached photos). Secondly I looked for the best and worst image the net has to offer (again see attached photo). I will let you make your own decision about these images.
thanks anthony, i have been chatting offline with a few guys, the c9.25 and c14 are apparently ideal setups for planetary in terms or mirror setups, but not the c11.
I not sure I understand fully why?
Damian Peach is apparently selling his lumenera, I wonder what new technology in cameras is about to launch???
I agree with what is being said about the C9.25 and C14. But I think you would agree with me that technique is the most important factor when imaging the planets. I have spent quite a bit of time scouring the net and looking at image quality produce by various types of scopes/camera combination. From what I have seen there is a wide range of image quality produce by amateur around the world but it looks like only a small percentage of these can produce high quality planetary image on a regular basis.
As a point of interest here are three image of Saturn taken by Edward Roach (you will find his work posted on Astromart Forum). He used a Meade LX90 8" SCT @ f/35, seeing 6-8/10, transparency 3/5, DMK 21AF04 for luminance, ToUcam 840 for RGB. These images are as good as Damian’s work and he is only using an 8” SCT.
While equipment is an important factor in planetary imaging, I would say that technique is a winning factor in producing high quality planetary image on a regular basis.
I think with the right camera plus technique your 10” GSO would probably produce the same quality of work.
I am starting to lose it!
Have a good one mate.
