20170408 TMB INTES f3000 DMK22 1K Luminance

To try Lucky imaging of planet, moon and sun I traded up from a  “ToUCam” to a used very low end CCD camera from Imaging Source, almost for the price of a simple webcam.  I was aware, that the DMK22 is hardly used in in astro imaging, but I wanted to play around a little bit with the three brightest planets without technical problems and concentrate completely on the Lucky imaging process. Why its disliked:

  • Small chip 744×480 (0.4 MP)
  • CMOS Not very light sensitve 1/3 inch Micron CMOS sensor (MT9V024)

The introduction of fairly cheap cameras and lucky imaging (mass image processing) with programs such as AVIStack, Astrostakkert, Registax or Giotto has resulted in paradigm shift of planet, moon and sun imaging.

Jupiter0001 17-04-03 -Intes DMK022

The two examples dane with 1500mm  respective 3000mm focal length and a good night:

  • 6 µm Pixel
  • Vintage Maksutov Cassegrain Alter M603 – Ebay in olive colour most likely from a tank: (Aparture 152mm – focal length, 1500mm – f/10, obstruction roughly 36%)
  • Infrarot Filter
  • Astrostakkert 2.0
  • 200 of 5000 BMP shots

The Imaging Source cameras deliver data quality that webcam users can only dream of: ultra-low frame noise, up to 72 frames per second without compression, and 60-minute maximum shutter speeds. and all this without any modifications, soldering nor heaps of special programs but a fairly funcional SW.

The Imaging Source cameras are originally industrial cameras, which have proven to be very suitable for astronomy a few years ago. Since 1995 the cameras have developed from an “insider tip” to an absolute hit and today are used internationally by almost all leading astrophotographers. -The world’s best lunar and planetary images are often created with DMK cameras from “The Imaging Source”.

Here are some own pictures that were taken with a DMK camera, or show the camera on the instrument:

To many the small chip cameras are for financial reasons the first choice. For planets, this camera is also correct, because the number of pixels is sufficient for a diffraction-limited image. A larger chip makes it possible to take pictures of the moon and the sun with less effort, but for those can use my other CCDs. A frame rate of 30 frames per second is also sufficient for the rapid rotation of the large gas planets in order to obtain sufficient data sets before the images are smeared by the rotation. The 60 frames per second of the cameras of the size can almost never profitably exploit, since rarely shutter speeds of less than 1 / 30s are feasable.

As usual the question remains: color or monochrome? For high-resolution photography, only the monochrome cameras together with filters come into question, the Bayer mask on the chip simply reduces the resolution too much. The color cameras are great for lazy astrophotography: the high-resolution data with a monochrome, and the color information (with lower resolution) with a color camera behind.