LN300 Instructions and Parameters
Hi folks,
For those of you with one of the LN300 cameras obtained directly from China, you will be more than familiar with how terrible the instructions are, and how difficult it is to control for our Astro purposes.
Some people have a handle on controlling it, but the information they pass on is often lacking somewhere or another, making for incomplete help. Making things even more complicated is the range of parameters that need to be altered depending on the object being videoed, and keeping tabs on all the changes.
I've fallen into this trap all too often, the latest being the camera's tendency to default a colour image to black and white with low illumination objects. A real pain in the bum.
Thankfully the good people of Revolution Imager have posted a set of camera instructions and parameters for this camera which they used as their first stock camera. The instructions talk ONLY about those settings which affect astro, which is really what we want - all the other settings do not affect astro imaging, such as Privacy, Motion detection, etc. AND at the end of the camera menu guide is a set of parameter settings which are most effective for different objects, such as the Moon, Planets, and bright & dim DSO's. The instructions include both camera menu versions:
LN300 Instructions and Paremeters from Revolution Imager
Colour control
This aspect of the LN300 is the trickiest, and is controlled not just with setting the camera to "Day" mode, but also through Gamma, Gain and Brightness settings. And of course dependent on the object brightness. And then too exposure time also is a factor if not long enough or too long. BUGGER! Just when you thought it was now safe to go back in the water...
NOTE: Light pollution is a big factor in image quality, colour and contrast. With some familiarity of the camera, this becomes less of a problem.
~x.X.x~
Armed with the Revolution Imager instructions and the notes I had made over time, the other night I had another shot with my LN300 with my little DVD player monitor coupled to my eq platform mounted 8" f/4 dobbie, which is why I don't have screenshots to share (photo below is from several months ago). But...
OMG! What a difference this made! Finally not only was the colour stable, but I also had the finest control over the entire camera, and was getting the most outstanding image on my kids' DVD player
47 Tuc and M42 were ablaze on the screen, with wonderful colour, and the most lovely of subtle variations in 'smokiness' in M42. HOORAY! Now to tackle some galaxies. I'll also have another go at the Horse Head nebula, as I know this camera can pick it out from my home here in Sydney. I will
try to get screenshots of these as I go,