Well, with a pinched nerve, I wasn't going to miss out on a clear night so last night I spent broadcasting online regardless of the pain.
After I did my tests on my new peltier cooling on my Samsung AstroVideo camera, the night started pretty good.
I was visiting the usual suspects (the good folk in the Nthn Hemisphere like to see them over and over), then as the night moved along I noticed I was struggling to pick up some nebulae properly. All the usual Nebs were a bit pale looking so I went outside and found thick fog!
The only thing I could see in the sky visually was a very dim Rigel Kentaurus!
Oh well, atleast I could still see everything with the camera so I just kept broadcasting
The fog eventually cleared about 2am and the sky was magnificent.
It gave me a really good chance to test the cooling properly.
But, not that I needed to cool the camera. The thermometer told me it was -6c ambient
and the scopes, mount, everything was covered in ice!!!
The Peltier on the camera was pumping out ice by the bucket loads
It was growing in ice crystal formations all around the Peltiers cold block!
But the best part was that I was able to pump the camera right up to Full Gain, Maximum exposure, every setting on Maximum, and there were no hot pixels and no noise
I did notice around 4am that the live image was looking a tad out of focus but I wasn't able to get it any better by electric focussing. I went out and checked only to find that 3/4 of the 6" lens was covered in ice
And that was with the heater strap running!
I've never had that before.
Anyway, I will be broadcasting again tonight, but I have put 2 heater straps on the scope just in case it drops to -6c again
Isn't it nice to know that even on a totally fogged out night I can still do live video imaging. Ahhh, the wonders of modern AstroVideo cameras
I packed it in at 5:30 this morning after a terrific full night of 'Live' broadcasting