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This is the DMK 21AF04 camera from The Imaging Source. It is a monochrome camera, which I bought specially for imaging the Moon. It has a resolution of 640×480 pixels and is able to download uncompressed images at 60 frames per second. This enables me to capture a very large number of frames quickly and select only the very best for stacking into the final image. It can be obtained with either a USB2 interface or a Firewire interface. I selected the Firewire version because I have had difficulty getting more than one USB device to work simultaneously with my computer and I thought an alternative interface might be a good idea. Of course, I had to buy a Firewire card for my computer. (I found that K3CCDTools seemed to recognise the camera but then refused to work with it.) A is the camera itself. It is a cube, which does not show up well in this overhead view. It is sold with a screw-on cap which protects the sensor. B is an adaptor to fit a standard 1.25-inch eyepiece holder and is provided with the camera. Also provided is a 2-metre cable, which is not really long enough, in my view, so I bought a 4-metre one from Maplin. C. The camera is fitted with a C-thread, so I needed to buy this adaptor to fit it to the T-thread standard on most telescopes. D is the Firewire express card required to connect the camera to the computer. |
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As with most cameras when operated through the manufacturer's software, the settings are on scales the significances of which are unclear. For this camera the ranges are as follows. Exposure: 1/10000 to 3600 seconds with lots of preselected values in between (many of which are rather strange). Gain: 180 to 1023. Gamma: 10 to 22. |
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