In the December 2007 issue of the FREE AstroPhoto Insight magazine, Tim Easterday has published a very detailed article, which looks at the DMK 21AF04 and SPC900NC.
You can download the magazine from the AstroPhoto Insight web site.
Tim Easterday is a 1992 graduate of Purdue University with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering Technology. He is currently a senior project manager for the Intelligent Switchgear Organization, LLC. He has enjoyed observational astronomy and reading astrorelated books most of his life, but caught the astrophotography bug in 2006.
Tim starts his text, by looking at the physical quality of The Imaging Source astronomy camera:
The DMK 21AF04.AS camera is one solid piece of equipment. When it arrived I was impressed by the quality construction. It feels heavy and well built. [...] The camera comes with a thick metal base that is tapped for a tripod mount.
He briefly turns his attention to the shipped software IC Capture.AS:
The DMK 21AF04.AS is very easy to setup and get running for the first time. [...] The camera comes with a licensed copy of IC Capture.AS. The more I use this program, the more I love it. All the controls are laid out very sensibly across the top of the screen and you can enable only the controls you need and hide the rest. [...] I was instantly impressed with the results from the DMK 21AF04.AS. The AVI files taken with IC Capture.AS looked awful for the most part due to the turbulence in the atmosphere, but the DMK was able to capture those microsecond-long moments of good seeing.
In conclusion, Tim states:
For anyone who wants to take the next step up, the DMK series from The Imaging Source with their monochrome CCD sensors offer more sensitivity, better throughput performance, and awesome bundled software. My DMK is a keeper that will remain an important part of my imaging setup for a long time.
Here at The Imaging Source, we are very happy with Tims's review and would like to thank him for taking the time to write and have published such a detailed text.
Click on the image below to download:
