I was just looking at my e-mail archive and found this extremely high resolution image of the Moon. It was sent to us by Jean-Luc Dauvergne back in June 2006. Jean-Luc works for the French magazine Ciel et Espace (magazine de sciences de l’AFA, Association française d’Astronomie). Click the photo for the original (2.1 MB).

I think this must be the highest resolution photo that we have received so far. If you can top it, please send me your astronomy photo and I will publish it here. Of course, the photo must have been captured, using one of The Imaging Source cameras.

Thanks goes to Jean-Luc Dauvergne for this spectacular image.

Dominique Dierick is an avid astro-photographer, who deploys The Imaging Source FireWire cameras for some of his work.

On his beautifully illustrated web site, he writes:

On the high resolution front, since I discovered DMK industrial cameras in 2005, I don’t look back. They offer again a perfect balance of cost and functionality.

Most of Dominique’s images are taken in Ghent, Belgium from the balcony of his apartment on the fourth floor. Dominique states that a busy railway station is very close to his apartment. This causes serious light pollution and strong vibrations to the telescopes.

Regardless, he still is able to capture some astounding images. Below are some samples of his work.

Aristarchus region of the Moon, captured with a TMB 80mm telescope, 2.5x barlow, Astronomik RGB filter and DMK 41AF02.

The following photo was captured with a TOA130F telescope, Televue 5x barlow, Baader UV pass filter and DMK 31BF03:

The final photo was captured with a TMB 152 + Coronado PST telescope, G-alpha filter and DMK 31AF03:

To learn more about Dominique Dierick and to see more of his photos, please take a look at:

http://www.astronomie.be/dodi/amenu.html

Dr. Joseph M. Zawodny from NASA Langley Research Center recently sent us some photos of his telescope and camera rig from his flickr account. We published the photos in our In Action archive.

In one of the e-mails we exchanged, Dr. Zawodny wrote:

I am exceedingly pleased with the performance of these cameras. The fast frame rates combined with the low noise make astroimaging a joy. In the next couple of weeks, I plan to characterize the DMK 31AF03.AS to determine the number of electrons per bit as a function of gain, read noise, and dark current. [...] Your customer service has been absolutely first rate as well.

On looking at his flickr account today, I am delighted to report that Dr. Zawodny has now published the results of his promised DMK 31AF03.AS characterization.

You can read the full text of his characterization on his flickr account. Below is the resulting chart and a summary:

Dr. Zawodny varied the gain setting from its minimum value of 180 to its maximum value of 1023 in multiple steps. At its lowest setting (corresponding to the largest full well), he found the full well to be more than 13,000 electrons, digitized at slightly more than 50 electrons per data number. Here there was a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of slightly more than 100. At the highest gain settings, the sensor was counting nearly every electron (5/4 e- per data number) with a still useful maximum SNR of about 17 [max SNR = SQRT (max signal)].

Read noise was fairly uniform with a value of between 6 and 10 electrons. The sensor reached 32.2°C (90°F); ambient air produced a median dark current of about 0.6 electrons per second. He did not subtract any biases.

Dr. Zawodny finishes with:

Overall, I’m very pleased with the results of this characterization.

Characterization and images copyright Dr. Joseph M. Zawodny.

For years, DMK users have imaged and posted brilliant pictures across the Internet from inside and outside our solar system.

Astrophotographers using The Imaging Source cameras range from beginners in the hobby to seasoned professionals within the photography business.

A commonality within both of these groups is that RegiStax is most often implemented when processing raw images into the final pictures.

A recent post on The Imaging Source Astronomy Forum has posed a good question for the entire DMK community on the correct methods to use RegiStax for color calculation.

Mick Hollimon writes:

I have obtained some 20 AVI files containing between approx. 300 frames and about 650 frames. These were taken using the Y800 AVI format and the “uncompressed” Y800 codec; the “Enable debayering” button on IC Capture was left un-activated (icons to the right of the button on the control bar were grayed out). These files are between about 90 Mb and 240 Mb in length.

Several have been opened in RegiStax 4, and processed with the debayering function activated and all four choices, including GB, tried. In all cases there does not seem to be any color in the resulting images.
Two questions:

1. Any idea what I am doing wrong? Is there another setting in either IC Capture or RegiStax 4 that I should be dealing with?
2. If I choose to use the BY8 format, what is the effect of the resulting “compression” on the final images in RegiStax? Is there any way to use BY8 without “compression”?

Sensei Stefan responds:

I have created a small PDF for you that illustrates, with pictures, how to capture RAW AVI images, import them into RegiStax 4, and calculate the colors. Download the file.

Thank you Stefan!

Andreas Murner has been at it again. The last time I mentioned him in this blog, he had sent us a spectacular potpourri of monochrome solar images that he had captured with his DMK 31AF03.AS.

This time, FotoCommunity.de - a leading photo sharing portal in Germany - has published an equally crisp image that Andreas has entitled Mondkrater Petavius (Lunar Crater Petavius).

Wikipedia describes Petavius as:

Petavius is a large lunar impact crater located to the southeast of the Mare Fecunditatis, near the southeastern lunar limb. Attached to the northwest rim is the smaller Wrottesley crater. To the southeast are Palitzsch crater, Vallis Palizsch, and Hase crater. Further to the north is the large Vendelinus crater. The crater Petavius appears oblong when viewed from the Earth due to foreshortening.

The image which was captured with a homemade Newton telescope and DMK 31AF03.AS is below (click for original):

The reaction to this image on FotoCommunity.de has been very positive.

“Spectacular image; Framing, lighting and focus are perfect. Not exaggerated, as is unfortunately often the case”, writes Bernd.

“Homemade Newton telescope. That’s awesome! Nice crater image, by the way!”, writes Sepp.

“Absolutely amazing! That is a beautiful image of Petavius”, writes Christian.

“Great photo!”, writes Hartmuth.

“I fully agree with the others: Sharp, not exaggerated. You got good seeing!”, writes Manni.

Keep up the good work Andreas! Post more of these wonderful photos!