Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M
- GreatAttractor
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Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M
After 6 years with Chameleon 3 (ICX445) I decided to get a new camera. I was thinking about a larger sensor (2/3" instead of 1/3"), but since my current Hα setup has a limited sweet spot size, I went with faster acquisition instead (which should also help with results out of the 200 mm aperture). I chose Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M with IMX273 sensor, with somewhat smaller pixels than ICX445 (3.45 µm, 1440x1080).
The camera reaches 226 fps at full frame size, and more with smaller ROI, up to 886 fps@320x240. With such amount of data certain limitations crop up; e.g., in my acquisition laptop I have a cheap 1 TB SSD based on a (rather slow) QLC flash memory, and writing to it at this speed (ca. 330 MiB/s) is possible only until the fast buffer is filled (ca. 40 GiB). Afterwards, if the drive doesn't get a break to distribute this data, subsequent writes go straight to the QLC flash at mediocre 80 MiB/s. Which means that for time lapses longer than a few minutes I'll need to compromise with regards to ROI size and framerate.
No acquisition issues on any on my computers, full speed is always reached under Linux and Windows (tried on the AMD Ryzen workstation, on the new laptop with 11th gen. Intel Core, and on the 5-year old acquisition laptop with 5th gen. Intel Core).
Size comparison with the Chameleon 3; the BF-S's chassis is 3x3x3 cm (not counting the C-mount flange and GPIO socket at the back):
Since there are 3 conveniently flat sides available (I've put a tripod adapter at the bottom), I've attached radiators to drop the temperature by a few degrees:
As expected, there are Newton's rings in Hα. At f/7 they're barely visible:
and vanish after stacking (with a slight drift during capture):
They are more prominent at f/11.2, but disappear after tilting the camera a little bit; I'll be probably using a tilter (or maybe just flats):
The camera does not support the legacy APIs (IIDC and FlyCapture2), only the newer Spinnaker API. That was a bit surprising, then I remembered it's been already discussed in this thread.
The camera reaches 226 fps at full frame size, and more with smaller ROI, up to 886 fps@320x240. With such amount of data certain limitations crop up; e.g., in my acquisition laptop I have a cheap 1 TB SSD based on a (rather slow) QLC flash memory, and writing to it at this speed (ca. 330 MiB/s) is possible only until the fast buffer is filled (ca. 40 GiB). Afterwards, if the drive doesn't get a break to distribute this data, subsequent writes go straight to the QLC flash at mediocre 80 MiB/s. Which means that for time lapses longer than a few minutes I'll need to compromise with regards to ROI size and framerate.
No acquisition issues on any on my computers, full speed is always reached under Linux and Windows (tried on the AMD Ryzen workstation, on the new laptop with 11th gen. Intel Core, and on the 5-year old acquisition laptop with 5th gen. Intel Core).
Size comparison with the Chameleon 3; the BF-S's chassis is 3x3x3 cm (not counting the C-mount flange and GPIO socket at the back):
Since there are 3 conveniently flat sides available (I've put a tripod adapter at the bottom), I've attached radiators to drop the temperature by a few degrees:
As expected, there are Newton's rings in Hα. At f/7 they're barely visible:
and vanish after stacking (with a slight drift during capture):
They are more prominent at f/11.2, but disappear after tilting the camera a little bit; I'll be probably using a tilter (or maybe just flats):
The camera does not support the legacy APIs (IIDC and FlyCapture2), only the newer Spinnaker API. That was a bit surprising, then I remembered it's been already discussed in this thread.
Last edited by GreatAttractor on Thu Aug 19, 2021 7:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.
- Bob Yoesle
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Re: Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M
Great results!
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- marktownley
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Re: Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M
Rather nice results! How did you fix the heat sinks on?
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- GreatAttractor
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Re: Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M
With adhesive thermal pads. Available in most electronics/computer parts stores (the radiators/heatsinks too).
- Montana
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Re: Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M
I like the heat sinks too! very nice results your rings look just like my Chameleon rings, very annoying!
Alexandra
Alexandra
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Re: Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M
I'll be using this miniature tilter with C-mount threads:
The reason I wanted it is the big T2 ones (+ necessary adapters) would add quite a bit of optical path, and I wanted to tilt after the Barlow (i.e. in a low-F-number beam, to reduce the chance of visible focus unevenness), without a significant increase of image scale. Here it's only ca. 5 mm added.
I only had the time for a quick test today through an open balcony door; made just 1 iteration of tilt adjustment, but it already helped a lot (defocused telescope for better illustration):
A close inspection of the corners and the middle of a raw video indicated that uneven focus due to tilt, if there is any, is anyway masked by the usual defocus error of turbulence.
A drifted stack (etalon was a bit out of tune):
The strips near the edge may be still visible when using a tracking mount, I'll play some more with tilting then.
The reason I wanted it is the big T2 ones (+ necessary adapters) would add quite a bit of optical path, and I wanted to tilt after the Barlow (i.e. in a low-F-number beam, to reduce the chance of visible focus unevenness), without a significant increase of image scale. Here it's only ca. 5 mm added.
I only had the time for a quick test today through an open balcony door; made just 1 iteration of tilt adjustment, but it already helped a lot (defocused telescope for better illustration):
A close inspection of the corners and the middle of a raw video indicated that uneven focus due to tilt, if there is any, is anyway masked by the usual defocus error of turbulence.
A drifted stack (etalon was a bit out of tune):
The strips near the edge may be still visible when using a tracking mount, I'll play some more with tilting then.
- marktownley
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Re: Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M
Thanks for the update!
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- Montana
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Re: Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M
That's really good, where did you get it from? I can't use a tilter (I have the ZWO one) with my Chameleon on the PST as I can't reach focus with it.
Alexandra
Alexandra
- marktownley
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Re: Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M
http://brierleyhillsolar.blogspot.co.uk/
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- GreatAttractor
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Re: Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M
Made-to-order by an astromachinist in Poland (link). Unfortunately due to some new complex customs procedures he's not shipping abroad at the moment.
- marktownley
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Re: Blackfly-S BFS-U3-16S2M
Customs is a PITA, shipping abroad from wherever you are is made harder recently.GreatAttractor wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 3:35 pm Unfortunately due to some new complex customs procedures he's not shipping abroad at the moment.
http://brierleyhillsolar.blogspot.co.uk/
Solar images, a collection of all the most up to date live solar data on the web, imaging & processing tutorials - please take a look!