Planetary/Lunar cam & questions

[MjrTom]

Hello all

I have been looking at options for a planetary/Lunar camera.

I have looked at the webcam options and decided I wanted something with a little higher resolution and a higher frame rate as well.

So far I have been looking at stuff like the QHY5t camera @ £200 or similar which has a few mp resolution so I dont have to do too many lunar mosaics to get a decent field of view. Has ROI for planetary work with 2x2 binning to improve sensitivity.

I will be using it with my ED80 Refractor and 2.5x Powermate (1250mm @ f/16) mounted on my Astrotrac for tracking.

From previous experience that should give me a decent image size.

Would I be able to get away with a 5x powermate as well? (2500mm @ f/31) I suppose that would be dependant upon seeing conditions. I suspect that f/31 will be too dark for planetary work but what do you guys recon?

Just to throw the idea out there, what if I aimed a little higher cost wise, is there set point cooled cameras which might also fit into this bracket?

Also if I am way off the mark, please say, your welcome to suggest other options if you think that would be better.

Ultimately I intend upon getting into CCD DSO imaging as a progression from the DSLR but that will be a while yet I guess due to costs involved.

Anyway thanks! Hope my waffle makes sense

[MjrTom]

OK, from the lack of response I guess I have been waffling or answered my own questions I guess

[riklaunim]

80 mm isn't much for planetary imaging. QHY5t has color pixels - which isn't that useful for Lunar imaging. For basic planetary imaging it can be ok. 3,2 pixels will get max scope resolution at around f/12 so you don't have to go f/20 or more. Binning isn't needed for planetary as that would also require you to go to around f/24 to get the same image scale.

And note that Micron CMOS sensors used in QHY cams tend to have a lot / some of fixed pattern noise, and QHY5* aren't supported by popular capture software like FireCapture (olny QGVideo which may be tricky to use).

[MjrTom]

Right so I should go straight back to the drawing board then.... What would you recommend?

Thanks for the info!

[riklaunim]

There are mono/color planetary cameras with the ICX618 CCD (like DMK/DFK/DBK), but that sensor isn't big for terms of lunar imaging. If you would want something bigger for Lunar/Solar then another cam would be needed.

2in1 - bigger sensor with ROI support for fast planetary imaging aren't widely available to the end users. There is the QHY5 series, as well as DMK72 - but they use those noisy Micron CMOS sensors (still works, but will require more work when processing the images). There are also good ICX445 CCD cameras like Point Grey Chameleon (harder to order/get) or French iNova (more expensive) + Point Grey Flea 3 (Firewire 800) or Basler Ace (GigE) advanced cameras (even more expensive but very fast).

From the webcam market MS Lifecam Studio offers big and quite good OmniVision color CMOS sensor (better than Micron CMOS in QHY5*) that also offers very good performance with infrared filters (helpful for high res moon imaging).

[MjrTom]

Right I see so there is no free lunch then with this its one or the other.

I shall do a bit more research around the subject then

Thanks!