Ordered a new camera

It has been cloudy for very long, and there's not much chance that I can have any observation at the time being.

My Vaio U3 is too slow to use with my DMK 31AF03, I can get less than 10 fps with it. My new Eee should be much faster but it has no FireWire port, so I've been looking for good deal on USB based monochromatic camera.

I just found a great candidate and it is a Lumenera LU070M which features a 1/3" chip like the DMK 31AF03 but it has less pixels. However, given the size of the CCD, I can still cover the whole solar disc in one shot, and given the bigger pixel, it should deliver even cleaner image with shorter exposure. Since it is only 640x480, the data rate should be low enough for my Eee, so I believe that 30 fps is no problem, and maybe even higher is possible. Again, since the Eee has a screen less than 1024x768, so the DMK won't work in full screen mode without real time resizing, and therefore, the lesser resolution of the LU070M could be a better match.

Once it arrived, I shall test it against the DMK. If it works well, maybe I shall sell my DMK or I shall keep my DMK for use with my desktop PC? It has higher resolution and thus, it's meaningful to keep it in some sense.

What I got is a second hand deal, and it contains more than one camera in the deal, and it's a good bargain for me. Maybe I shall also sell the rest locally?

The LU070M is the board version of the famous LU075M, the only difference is the external case. Board version is better in the sense that you can do cooling easier, or you can do whatever modification easily. And if you want a case, you can always DIY one with some simple plastic box of suitable size, the of course, it's also cheaper.

20100201 Sun (AR1043)

Seeing 3/10, transparency 2/10 (the sky is white), AR1043 is around but it's small.

1549 (GMT+8):-


1550 (GMT+8):-


Just a record.