View Single Post
  #1  
Old 28-09-2010, 09:07 PM
ballaratdragons's Avatar
ballaratdragons (Ken)
The 'DRAGON MAN'

ballaratdragons is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: In the Dark at Snake Valley, Victoria
Posts: 14,412
Samsung SCC-A2333 1st light report

Well, I finally had a clear night after weeks and weeks of Rain, cloud and storms. A great way to end our Eleven year drought!

I got to test out my Samsung SCC-A2333 CCTV camera for 'LIVE' Astro broadcasting.

This model Samsung offers:
Lux rating at 0.0000006 in night mode at full x512 sens-up, 10.25 seconds integration and a 1/2" SONY Ex-View HAD IT CCD Chip.

The in-camera IR filter is a mechanical device that slides in and out of the front of the chip.

Up until this test run I had only been able to video the Moon for about 1/2 an hour.
The one chance I had at DSO's only lasted 5 minutes due to rain.

Now, I can happily report that I spent several hours on DSO's with great results.
Initially I had a bizarre rectangle of light similar to an inner reflection, but no matter what I tried it would not go away.

Enter Martin Ferlito (see_ate) up in Sydney! Martin very patiently went through my whole set-up with me step by looooong step, until the only step left was to return to 'Factory Default' settings and start again.
I even allowed the in-camera IR filter to operate again. I had previously locked it open.

Once this was done the camera finally behaved and after adjusting and re-adjusting all the settings it gave crystal clear beautiful coloured Live video of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Fornax Galaxy Cluster, NGC253 Silver Coin Galaxy, 47Tuc Globular Cluster and some small faint Galaxies in Telescopium.

Not only were these images quite good, they were through thin cloud and with the Moon shining bright!


Summary: This camera has turned out to be better than I expected.
The in-camera IR filter doesn't seem to dull images compared to no filter, and does it's job of tidying up the stars.
The 1/2" Sony chip is so sensitive that Nebulae was blowing out too bright at 5 seconds integration. Results were better at 2.5 seconds. So the full 10.25 seconds should reveal those extremely faint objects.

Thank you to all of you that visited my broadcast while doing this first DSO test. I appreciated your comments

Equipment: Saxon 120mm f5 Refractor with x0.6 Focal Reducer, EQ6 mount, Samsung SCC-A2333 CCTV camera @ 2.5 seconds integration, colour mode, Video Grabber, Laptop, broadcast live on NightSkiesNetwork.

Remember, these cameras are not for high quality imaging and stacking. They are for 'Live' broadcasting. The following images are Screen Grabs of live video.

Images from this first test night on NightSkiesNetwork:

1. Satellite passing under Tarantula Nebula in LMC
2. NGC253 Silver Coin Galaxy
3. 47Tuc (needs lower integration time)

Thanks all
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (Satellite-in-Tarantula.jpg)
92.9 KB654 views
Click for full-size image (NGC253-28-Sept.jpg)
74.8 KB691 views
Click for full-size image (47-Tuc-28-Sept.jpg)
98.1 KB558 views
Reply With Quote