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Old 28-12-2015, 06:42 PM
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Howard (Howard)
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Howard is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posts: 40
Like Wayne (posted 15-11-2015 11:54am), I too use a dslr/shutterless on high'ish ISO for live viewing.

I own 3 Mallincams and one ZWOptics camera for live viewing which I have done for about 4 years now. I have herniated disks in my neck and back so have troubles holding in position staring through EP's. Hence took to live viewing all those years ago.

But IMHO the dslr/shutterless route is easier to use and yields much sharper images. I use a Canon 700D for wider FOV (APS-C size sensor) and a Nikon J1 4/3's sensor which is about twice the mag of the Canon as its abut half the size. I say if you have a dslr, and a laptop, then try that first. Plus join night skies network on the web (free) to watch various guys use Mallincams, Samsungs, A7S's, Canons, ZWO's and other cams doing live broadcasting. You'll see the images live realtime from all those and learn heaps about the techniques with each.

My fav is my second hand Nikon J1, an adapter for it off fleeBay, a wireless shutter release, and a eye-fi card for it for a grand total of AU$230. I use a second hand 2006 Macbook which I got for $400 off Gummytree and use that for the past 4 years with a Windows partition on it in field.

It works fine as a totally wireless setup. Press the wireless shutter release, wait 2 secs @ ISO3200 double stars/focusing, or 5 to 20 secs for widefield, or globs or bright nebs, or stacked 20 secs series for galaxies ... which all come wirelessly to the macbook.

I use some free software called AstroToaster on the Mac which auto reads the incoming images from the Nikon and stacks auto if you tell it to. It uses the DSS Live engine (also free). Many of those live NSN broadcaster with Mallincams, Samsungs, Sony's, Canon's, ZWo's etc use AT to stack and colorise those cams images on the fly too.

Mallincam, the Atik Infinity cam, the Sony A7 series and cooled ZWO cams are all changing the live viewing scene. Quite an interesting time.
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