Hiya Wharf, i'm going canon eos,i've maxed out lens shooting ,but will use the eos same way as ccd camera at times,i had problems with computers,cords,formats,just lot of hassle unless your in an observatory,i'm still carry-out scoper,Enjoy!!.. 8^)
Bozo

Filters:

UV/IR Cutoff - mandatory, essential.

Polarizing filter - good but won't cripple you if you don't have it

cam stuff:

Gamma - play around with it

Gain - again, experiment

FPS rate - keep it at 10 or less if you can deal with the focusing, if not, focus under higher frame rate and drop it down for tracking.

White Balance can make or break you. Get used to toying around with it too.


The lowest settings on a camera will often times produce the better images. When you first set up a CCD camera, they tend to run hot. Meaning that they try and process too much information. Dial every thing down to a usable level and adjust accordingly to bring out the most subtle details.

Make sure there is plenty of room on your hard drive. My last .avi file ate up 4GB (@ ~3000 frames) of room on my machine. Granted, half of it got ditched when I stacked the frames in registax, but in the meantime time I just had to be sure the space was there.

You're psyched. Enjoy it. There's nothing like the arrival of new gear, figuring it out. etc.

I don't know every thing and I certainly hope I don't present myself as sounding like I do, but maybe I can help you along with a little bit of actual experience myself.