Nice write-up, but one point needs to be corrected. Your "Subjective Comparison" notes that the planets, other than Venus, are typically too dim for frame rates beyond 30fps. Which leads you too the conclusion that the USB2 or firewire cams considered are essentially equal.

Mars, near opposition, as it was for us this winter, has a high surface brightness. Enough so, that lum exposures, even at an effective FL of 10m, are less than 10ms, allowing 100+fps. The cameras that allow ROI, or selectable frame sizes, such as the Skynyx, can therefore be advantageously used to capture clean frames at almost twice the frame rate that other cameras allow. In the case of photography through a turbulent atmosphere, speed does matter.

Venus, in white light can, as you pointed out, benefit from frame rates greater than 30fps, much greater than 30fps, but most serious Venus imagers are using UV filters that limit actual record rate to 15-30fps. Therefore, Venus doesn't really offer much of a testbed for comparison of these cameras.

Robert