Mars, 4th October

[elusiver]

awesome image bird!

i've been looking at installing linux onto one of my lappies, as i've already installed it into my second machine at home and quite like it. What kinda windows equivalents does linux have for astro photography?

el

[anthony2302749]

Wow, top job. I am still looking at cloudy skies here in Melbourne.

Anthony
Melbourne, Australia

[ving (David)]

been thinking bout linux for ages but i am too scared to use it :scared3"

[beren]

Stunning

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Originally Posted by elusiver

awesome image bird!

i've been looking at installing linux onto one of my lappies, as i've already installed it into my second machine at home and quite like it. What kinda windows equivalents does linux have for astro photography?

el

I've used linux to run a ToUcam, the best application is called Qastrocam. It's written and supported by a guy in France (or Belgium? can't remember) whose english is a bit dodgy, but the program works fine.

Also if you have a firewire camera then you can use another app called Coriander. That's what I was using for this image.

Any video camera with a "Video4linux" driver will work.

These are both open source programs, meaning you get the source code to play with as well :-)

regards, Bird

[davidpretorius]

bird, what is your website?

[rumples riot]

Hey Anthony, wonderful image as usual.

You will be pleased to know that our seeing has been blocked by enormous cloud banks for the past two weeks, (last weekend does not count as I was in Perth). So for four months now the weather has not be conducive to doing any imaging. I hope it breaks soon.

How do you think the new camera compares with the old? The reason I ask is that with my collimation finally sorted I want to reconsider the camera I am using. (I sent an email with shots to Rod Mollise and he said that my collimation is about as good as it gets) So I am now looking for a replacement camera. Price must be considered, also I am running XP. Got any suggestions?

Paul

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Great shot Bird. Can't wait to see your images of the other planets when they come in view again.

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Paul, I wouldn't swap my camera for any other one regardless of price. I reckon I've got the best planetary camera on the market at the moment :-)

Of course it's also the most expensive camera, so I'm probably the only one silly enough to pay nearly AUS$2k for it :-)

BUT I found out today that the company that makes my camera is releasing a new model next week that looks like it might also be good for astronomy and a fair bit cheaper than mine.

I don't know what the price for the new camera will be yet, but I've seen some of the specs for it, and it has all the good stuff needed for planetary imaging - 16bit monochrome data, uncompressed, firewire connection etc.

The website for the company is www.ptgrey.com. I have the "Dragonfly Express" model, and the new model that's coming next week is probably going to be called a "Dragonfly2" camera.

For my money the only way to get top results on the planets is to use a monochrome camera and filterwheel with an electronic focusser. On nights of good seeing that combination will crush anything else :-)

Oh, and here's another processed image from a few nights ago...

regards. Bird