Due to the cloud I haven't been able to test this Watec 120N+ camera under the stars as an imaging camera in its own right (I've been using it as my guiding camera). However I was wondering how it would go with various integrations starting at 1/50th sec up to 120 seconds integration. In the photo Ive arranged them as a snake from shortest integ to 120 sec integ. Also are two larger frames, one is a 60 sec dark at 25deg C and the other a 60 sec integ pointed at a visually dark surburban area.
It really seems to integrate well and I was extremely surprised at the 60 sec dark frame as I can only see a few hot pixels which look essentially the same as a 120 sec dark.
However I purchased a very cheap video USB grabber ($30) on ebay and when you look at a static picture I can see fluctuating lines crossing the screen at an angle from left to right. In bright light when doing an avi its not there, so I think its some sort of interference when I integrate and download the picture. Sometimes with some settings the frame is actually posterised You can see that in the background picture.
Anyone some suggestions other than pay $2-300 for a better frame grabber. Any reasonable recomendations welcome.
Regards, Allan
Allan, I had similar problem when I was using security motion detection PC card for meteor detection. Vertical banding was worst with Mintron colour camera and not so bad with GStar. Firstly I replaced video coax (I was using 75 Ohm old network coax because I had heaps of it) with 50-Ohm coax. It got better but not by much. After much mucking with whole set-up I found out that if I change BIOS setting on my desktop computer, banding almost disappear. Setting is “Spread Spectrum”. I don’t have clue what it does and I don’t remember setting I used, but it did work.
Hi,
I just purchased a Watec 120N+ for Transient Luminous Events observation. Could you recommend the best setting for the gain and the shutter speed of the camera?