Imaging Cameras

[rray6]

I just want to jump in and say this has been a great thread. I am also in the market for a new solar camera (high res, fast frame rate, etc) and am waiting for the new PG USB3 models to come out. But in the meantime, I am learning a lot reading these posts. Thanks everyone!

Robert

[thesmiths]

But I had thought ASTRO IIDC was no longer available? In any case, for scientific work, I am a PC person (despite having a MacBook Air for "non-scientific" stuff). With Windows laptops you can swap batteries, increase RAM, swap hard drives, etc while Mac's are typically a bit of a sealed box.

[rico10]

Many thanks again Brian. I noticed a few things today, and learned a few on the net with the neximage. One is I didn't understand histograms, today I changed to a log based graph and used the gain a bit to get the histogram up to about 250. As well as I practiced using the dip found towards the dark end to help with focusing. Next I changed codecs to BYB and RGB24 and this solved the problem of the effect of looking through a mesh screen. As well my pear shaped sun is gone this seems to have been happening because some of the resolution settings are not 4x3 format. I choose 1024x768 and this also helped in that my frame rate options increase to just over 25/sec. on top of that I spent a little time with some old images in Registax and worked on the wavelet feature using the denoise function to alow for some better sharpening, although I over did it a bit. And your right about something else my answer usually to problems, work a couple more days in the field and buy it. Not going to happen anymore, I'll practice with the NexImage and maybe even try the DSLR after that, then when I get those down pat I'll consider upgrading to a higher resolution monochrome camera. Time to stop blaming the gear and get to work. Many thanks for the info. and some sound Philosophy.

[solarchat]

"With Windows laptops you can swap batteries, increase RAM, swap hard drives, etc while Mac's are typically a bit of a sealed box. "


mainly because they are designed right from the start and you dont need to swap batteries, or increase ram...

if any of our posters Mac computers come through my hands, they will have ASTRO IIDC on them..

[MapleRidge]

Hi Rico...

Glad to hear you are progressing...learning how all this stuff works is the best way to make progress and a little help goes a long way too. Kinda like the old addage of giving a man a fish vs teaching him to fish

I skipped over the starshoot camera....wasn't sure whhich model it was. If it is mono you should be able to get some decent images, especillay if it has the ICX285 chip (another nice chip, just not as high a resolution). If it will do a short enough exposre it would be worrth a try, but will be slow download rate...again, try it and see.

Don't hesitate to ask questions!

Brian

[MapleRidge]

Hi Stephen...

The Macs are great pieces of work...no arguement there, they just don't fit everyones taste (not unlike Scotch, some love it others don't appreciate it ).

I have only used ASTRO IIDC once (at your NEAF demo) and it looks to be an excellent program for the Mac. I'm sure some think it is defunct after several rumours of discontinued support.

Brian