Gstar Ex

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #1 13-04-2007, 10:25 AM

I'm taking the plunge today and ordering the Gstar Ex.

Exciting stuff! I'd nearly saved up enough cash for it, but hubby said I may as well get it now. ( It only took 3 days of nagging

)
With no laptop to go with it, I've had to use a bit of skull sweat to work out how I'll be able to use it.
My solution is this;
Nick the DVD recorder from the telly, plug the Gstar to the AV in, then hook up the portable DVD player that has a 7" LCD screen to AV out so I can see what I'm capturing.
The beauty of it is that I can start and stop the capture using the remote control, because I'll still be having to guide the scope by hand. (tracking is still a long way away)
I'm so looking forward to seeing what it can do.

ving (David) · #2 13-04-2007, 01:34 PM

Ooo!!! exciting!

let us know how you go jeanette

duncan · #3 13-04-2007, 02:17 PM

Hi All,
Are you going to use it on the Dob? This will be very interesting to follow and see how you go. It's what i wanted to try but still saving the pennies.
Cheers,
Duncan

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #4 13-04-2007, 04:05 PM

Duncan, yes, I'll be using it with the Dob.
I thought that I would only be able to use it for planets, but Steve assured me that I should be able to do dso's, even with no tracking.
Can't wait to find out.

ving (David) · #5 13-04-2007, 04:29 PM

sweet!!!

Dennis · #6 13-04-2007, 04:32 PM

That is fantastic news Jeanette - you're going to have some great fun (as well as some trying times no doubt!) with that set up. Even now, I still find it quite magical whenever an image of a remote celestial object appears on my screen, whether from ToUcam, DMK, ST7 or Pentax sensors.

Cheers

Dennis

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #7 13-04-2007, 05:09 PM

But Dennis, aren't the trying times half the fun?
It'd seem wrong if it all went perfect first time round.

Phil · #8 13-04-2007, 06:08 PM

Hi Jeanette
I have that camera and it is a great little camera i use my as a electronic finder with a little tiny LCD screen on my telescopes. It has about .0001 lux which makes it very sensitive to light. Very good camera hope you enjoy.
Phil

[1ponders] (Paul) · #9 13-04-2007, 07:08 PM

Great buy Jeanette. It's been a hard decision not to get one to try out, unfortunately it's a bit of a way down the priority list.

anthony.tony · #10 15-04-2007, 01:07 PM

you can plug it into video in terminal of a TV and watch live .I Have recorded onto VHS tape. Tony

netwolf · #11 15-04-2007, 06:02 PM

Jeanette
Better than your DVD recorder which would no doubt use MPEG2 compression is your miniDV camera. If it has the ability you can either record from an external source to the miniDV tape or pass through via firewire link to you PC.

Check this out. Its called Drift Integration or Time Delay Integration, no need for tracking. Also you can integrate video taken over many nights.
http://www.cometdust.demon.co.uk/QCU...tion/index.htm

Drift Scan links.
http://www.driftscan.com/links.htm

Regards

ballaratdragons (Ken) · #12 15-04-2007, 06:14 PM

Pics Jeanette, we want pics

and not of the G-star Ex, we want sky pics

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #13 16-04-2007, 09:51 PM

Ken, it should be here tomorrow, I hope. I'll post piccies ASAP, once I work out how to use it.
Fahim, I'll have to look into that. My camera has a DV Input/Output terminal, so if the Gstar has this special i.Link terminal it would be ideal. It would make it a very portable unit. Better than lunking around the DVD recorder.

netwolf · #14 16-04-2007, 11:21 PM

jjjnettie,

miniDV camera's come with a Firewire port as standard, its also referred to as an I-link. Recording to the miniDV or via the miniDV (if yours has pass through) will provide much better quality video with little compression loss. This pass through method is also used my many people to convert old VHS tapes to digital format by passing it through the dv camera to a computer.

Better yet you maybe able to use the LCD view screen of the dv camera to view the output of the GSTAR.

Regards.
Fahim

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #15 18-04-2007, 12:54 PM

It's arrived!

ving (David) · #16 18-04-2007, 01:13 PM

how is it?

a boy or girl?

when do you get first light?

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #17 18-04-2007, 08:24 PM

LOL
It must be a girl. We are having communication problems already. But we'll sit down tonight and work it through.
I'll be happy to just get images coming through on the telly at the moment.

Dennis · #18 18-04-2007, 09:06 PM

Hmm, now that is really puzzling…I though that girls were good at communicating and it was us boys who were poor communicators…so the camera must be a boy?

Maybe the new age overtook me?

Cheers

Dennis

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #19 18-04-2007, 11:07 PM

Dennis, you forget I'm a tomboy. I've never really gotten on with girls, we don't talk the same language. ie. shoes, makeup, dresses.

But, this post is about my new camera. It worked a treat. I started off using it with a 2x barlow, but put that aside, so I could have a larger fov. I can see that my next purchase will be a field reducer so I can catch some wide field pics.
Omega Centauri was huge! It wouldn't fit on the screen. The Jewel Box, Jupiter, M1 and Eta carina were just a few of the things I looked at.
I didn't play around with many of the functions, I just programed in the settings recipe for deep sky, that I got from Steve Quirks site, and stuck with that.
Tomorrow I'll get an s-video cable so I can start imaging. Whoo Hoo.

ballaratdragons (Ken) · #20 19-04-2007, 01:40 AM

Woo-hoooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!