Video grab & go

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Been mucking around for a little while with various video permutations. Have wanted to use some of my old film SLR lenses so made up a rough-as adaptor out of some plumbing to mount a Tokina 200mm lens to the end of one of my CCD camera's.
Going to be a work in progress but so far it gives fair viewing of the moon and open clusters, still trying to work out optimum settings for more deep sky stuff.
Next thing I'll be doing is making up a mount for two of the cameras in a side-by-side arrangement. Recently acquired a couple of CCTV lenses from eBay to use as wide-field:

• 16mm
• 10 - 120mm zoom

The tripod you see is pretty crummy. Would like to get a sturdier one or even an Alt-Az. Other option is to mount natively or piggy-back on the EQ6 but I want to try and make it as a portable easy-peezy option.
Other items on the to-do for this will be some kind of Peltier based cooling to try and lower the amount of hot-pixels at higher sense-up as well as a platform to mount the monitor/s.
Will post more pics when I get a chance

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Hey Adam, there are some very sturdy camera tripods which would suit your neat light-wieght rig. Much better suited than a heavy telescope alt-az. Easy to over engineer, but it makes it heavy.

Your first time with a beard?

Mental

[Wavytone]

Is the camera mono or colour ?
If it's mono,you could insert an image intensifier in between lens and camera - eliminates the need for cooling.

[lacad01 (Adam)]

It's a colour camera. It already has what looks like some sort of filter in front of the CCD, my guess would be UV/IR will try and get a close up and post. But what I've noticed at long/high sense up mode that there's pesky hot pixels which appear as false stars.
Alex, yep I like the idea of a heavy duty camera tripod as it would negate the mucking around with alignment, balance/weights, etc.
Beard - yeah mate I had a goatee last time you saw me so am going the whole hog so to speak...tend to alternate between goatee/full but have had some form of facial growth for past 20 years

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by lacad01

my guess would be UV/IR

Colour CCD's are sensitive to IR, so they stick in the IR filter in front of the CCD (looks greenish). It is supposed to even out the colour spectrum for colour cameras.
Some people take it out for low light operations.

Usually B/W cameras have higher sensetivity that colour and using RGB filter with appropiate software can work well. Bit fiddly, I have seen some low lux colour cameras out there recently. I can get a hold of 0.01 lux cameras, cost a bit though.

EDIT - .003 lux

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Originally Posted by mswhin63

Colour CCD's are sensitive to IR, so they stick in the IR filter in front of the CCD (looks greenish). It is supposed to even out the colour spectrum for colour cameras.
Some people take it out for low light operations.

Usually B/W cameras have higher sensetivity that colour and using RGB filter with appropiate software can work well. Bit fiddly, I have seen some low lux colour cameras out there recently. I can get a hold of 0.01 lux cameras, cost a bit though.

EDIT - .003 lux

Interesting...that camera I've shown was touted as 0.0001 lux in sense-up mode. I don't think it would be that difficult to remove the filter carefully with a pair of long-nose pliers.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

I just checked with my supplier and the lowest I can go is 0.001 Lux. Interested where you got the camera as that is extremely low.

I would be careful, but at that lux level you may not need to.

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Here's the link to the guys I bought it from originaly (as an eBay purchase):
http://www.edigitaldeals.com/shop/su...light-PAL.html
Sorry, my bad - is 0.00045 lux.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Damn good price and good Lux level. The next feature would be low CCD noise but for low cost entry level stuff that is very good.