The self-proclaimed first French language podcast for amateur astronomers (le premier podcast francais des astronomes amateurs) has published two exceptional movies showing our astronomy cameras in action.

For the purposes of these movies, the author deploys a DMK 21AF04.AS.

In the first one, the author shows how to use the camera to capture around 3,000 singular images of the moon. He uses a Skywatcher 120 ED, 2.5 X Barlow lens, and Astro IIDC.

The images are then stacked and rendered to produce the final image.

The movie is in French, but completely understandable, even if you do not speak the language.

Download: podcast_3.mov

Below are a few stills from the movie:

In the second movie, which has been accelerated 16 times, the author has created a sequence that shows the Moon and Saturn. He states that creating this movie was especially complicated, as the moon is much brighter than Saturn. Furthermore, the weather was pretty bad.

The movie was created with the same rig as above.

Download: podcast_5.m4v

Many thanks go the author, who remains nameless - unfortunately, I could not find his name in his blog:

http://astropodcast.fr

The Imaging Source along with AstronomyCameras.com is proud to announce its new line of CCD cameras in Sky & Telescope this coming issue! See the DMK in all its glory from July through December in six full page 4-color advertisements showcasing stunning images sent to us by YOU.

Over the past 4 months we have received literally hundreds of solar, stellar, and planetary images from dozens of DMK owners. To best introduce our cameras to the rest of the astronomy community, we will be publishing a select number of these images in the Sky & Telescope advertisements.

With its robust IC Capture Astronomy Software, its rugged industrial construction, and its amazing ease of use, our FireWire CCD imagers will be The Next Generation of FireWire Astronomy Cameras! Look for YOUR shot in this months Sky & Telescope and spread the good word about The Imaging Source and AstronomyCameras.com.

Iceman, based in Gosford, Australia has posted an animation of Jupiter in the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum. It was captured with The Imaging Source DMK 21AF04.

He writes:

Here’s the results of my very first RGB image with the DMK 21AF04, taken on Friday night in fluctuating 4-6/10 seeing. I took 11 avi’s in total, but only managed to salvage 5 images due to the fluctuating seeing.

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/downloads/20060707-jupiter_anim.gif

iceman notes that Ganymede is in the shot, transiting the planet (shown as the blot) at the bottom of the image. Furthermore, some markings can be seen even during transit.

On April 27, 2007, Baader Planetarium became one of our resellers in Germany. This week, they have published two in depth pages (here and here), discussing our astronomy cameras (in German).

Below, is a summary of the benefits, which Baader Planetarium cites that The Imaging Source DMK series of astronomy cameras has over traditional web cameras. We have translated this information from German to English to make it accessible to our world wide audience. The source is cited below.

Baader Planetarium writes:

• Clean and robust, mechanical and electrical workmanship (metal casing with C/CS mount thread), such as is demanded in industrial applications. For example, conveyor belt surveillance and controlling in dirty production environments. Benefit: As the C/CS mount thread is spun in metal, it is possible to ensure a very tight fit onto the eye piece mount; thus any T2 accessory can be integrated.

• Extremely fast image capture and transfer via FireWire, monochrome (1024×768 pixel) and RGB color (640×480 pixel) with up to 30 frames per second (dependent upon the speed of the connected PC and/or hard disk). Benefit: Thanks to the fast image capture and transfer, moments of good seeing can be taken advantage of and thus the camera’s raw image data capture can be optimally used.

• Very sensitive CCD (For example: Exposure time of the Moon at f/10 can be considerably shorter than 1/100 second). Benefit: Undesirable effects from bad seeing can be avoided. Narrow band color filters (such as Baader K-Line, SolarContinum, IR Pass) can be used to improve the image, even at relatively short exposure times.

• Low dark current noise and extremely low noise electronics (without cooling). Benefit: The Imaging Source astronomy cameras can be deployed for deep sky captures and as a guiding camera. Exposure time can be set manually at up to 3600 seconds.

• Image data from the DMK astronomy cameras are not compressed, nor electronically filtered. Benefit: True raw image data is guaranteed. These can be used for post-capture image processing.

• Free definition and application of a region of interest (ROI) on the live video stream. Benefit: When seeing is bad, it is often not necessary to capture the full 1024×768 pixels and to just concentrate on the best part of the image. This saves large amounts of storage.

• Singular images from the live video stream can be saved by pressing the space key; furthermore, image sequences can be saved.

• Professional and stable camera control software IC Catpure.AS.

Source: http://www.baader-planetarium.de/dmk/dmk_start.htm

Sitting on the front deck of this house in Corte Madera, CA, USA, Steve has captured some stunning images with this DMK 21AF04 camera. He writes:

The astrophotos [..] were taken from my front deck with the Imaging Source DMK 21AF04 monochrome camera, captured with Astro IIDC and processed by Lynkeos, Keith’s Image Stacker, Astrostack and Photoshop.

Elsewhere, using a TMB 80mm, 2.5x barlow and DMK 41AF02, Dominique Dierick has published an impressive photo of the Aristarchus region on the Moon and several images of the Sun in color, captured with DMK 31BF03.