This year I had the opportunity and the pleasure to attend the entire NEAIC meeting at Rockland Community College in Suffern, New York. This two day conference offered astronomy buffs many great talks on beginner, intermediate, and advanced astro-imaging.

With the schedule packed with enthusiasts from Solar, Stellar, and Planetary imaging, I found it difficult to attend all of the wonderful talks. “The little DMK” seemed to be quite a hot topic in many of the presentations this year, as well as, the social discussions (and quarrels) that followed.

As a fairly new player on the astronomy imaging scene, The Imaging Source astronomy cameras did quite well taken to its paces by so very many imaging experts!

Six of our fine resellers from “The Americas” attended the event, three of which stayed throughout the weekend selling our products. OPT, Adirondak, and Woodland Hills all ran purchasing specials on The Imaging Source cameras for both NEAIC and for the subsequent NorthEast Astronomy Forum.

Here I am in the middle of the imaging mob with John and Jim from Adirondack Astronomy.

Of the most impressive presentations, below are a couple photos from a presentation by Robert Reeves, the author of Introduction to Webcam Astrophotography. In this talk, Mr. Reeves shows the audience why the DMK 41AF02.AS is his pick for high quality, low noise, and low cost astrophotography solutions:

If this is an indication of the coming year’s success for The Imaging Source cameras in the astronomy imaging market, I look forward to seeing all of our customers and dealers at this year’s RTMC in Big Bear!

Clear Skies

profjohn

One of our German resellers - Baader Planetarium - is currently running a promotion whereby, if you purchase any The Imaging Source astronomy camera, you will get four Baader adapters for free!

From their web site:

Sonderaktion DMK 2008 - Bis auf weiteres liefern wir Ihnen bei jeder Bestellung eines Videomoduls der Firma [The Imaging Source] folgende 4 speziellen BAADER Zubehörteile im Wert von mehr als Euro 90.- kostenlos mit!

Bitte bei der Bestellung einer DMK Kamera unbedingt zusätzlich - zur Bestellnummer des Videomoduls - angeben:

Kombi Sonderaktion, BNr. 295 8119

Take a look at this section of their web site for details.

The question of whether FireWire or USB 2.0 is a better choice for an astronomy camera gets raised time and time again in our support and pre-sales departments.

One of our German reseller - Intercon Spacetec - has published a brief overview of how they see the situation. With their permission, I have translated the following from German into English for our global audience:

The speed at which data can be transferred across the FireWire bus and the USB bus is almost identical. In practice, FireWire seems to have a very slight edge. However, as the maximum frame rate of both the FireWire and USB series of astronomy cameras is identical, this advantage is purely academic.

Customers who are looking to run their astronomy cameras on Linux will have an easier time with the FireWire series, as the standard IEEE-1394 driver works fine. USB, on the other hand, requires a specialized driver [see these blog posts for details].

Users of Windows are better off using the USB series, as the cameras’ handling is easier than that of the FireWire astronomy cameras.

Power is also an issue to look at when debating whether FireWire or USB is better suited to the task. Normally, both FireWire and USB cameras draw their energy over the cable. An external power supply unit is, therefore, not necessary.

One (very important) exception is when running the cameras on laptops: The FireWire connectors on laptops typically have only four pins and thus cannot power the cameras. It is, therefore, necessary to power the cameras using an external power supply unit, which, out in the field, is often somewhat cumbersome.

Deploying USB cameras avoids this inconvenience.

German and French versions of this text are also available.

• What do you think?
• Which do you prefer?
• FireWire or USB?
• Why?

Please post your opinion in the comments section below. Thank you!

Optique PK3 is one our French resellers, with their shop in Cholet. Although the main business of Optique PK3 lies in selling spectacles, the astronomy division, which was founded around ten years ago, is continually growing.

Optique PK3 has just published their catalog for 2008 and is currently shipping it to customers and prospects in their area.

They recently added the full line of astronomy cameras, manufactured by The Imaging Source, to their range of products. Indeed, their new catalog contains an entire page dedicated to our cameras.

If you live in or around Cholet and would like to receive their catalog, or if you would just like to go round and talk to them about astronomy, click on the following link for contact information:

• http://www.optiquepk3.com

Maison de l’astronomie, one of our French resellers - based in Paris - has just published the following brief article in their news bulletin:

Translated into English, this means:

They’ve done it again! The Imaging Source has yet again brought out new cameras, but this time with a new connector. The new cameras ship with a USB 2.0 connector, hence there is no need to use a specialized power supply (as was the case with the FireWire models). This makes the new cameras particularly suited to deployment in the field. The cameras ship with three types of CCDs: 640×480, 1024×768 and 1280×960.

If you are ever in Paris, we recommend going round to Maison de l’astronomie to take a look at all the wonderful products they have in stock!