shirva

The Loadstar was always regarded as a great camera and with Paul's Loadstar live software made it even better,, with Paul not being around for a while the software hasn't been upgraded,, not to say that it can't be still used,, but by looks of things it won't be getting an update anytime soon .

Since zwo came in the seen they have taken a large chunk of the astronomy camera market,, 

I have the asi178mc and with researching camera specs I found it had the starvis sensor fitted,, I to be honest found I had more control using my canon 600d , byeos and astrotoaster,, for simplicity a lot of the time I don't use astrotoaster..

I prefer the near live view, that the planetary setting has on byeos.

Would I buy another dedicated astronomy camera,, I have to admit ,, no ,, I would like to upgrade to a full frame camera instead. Think it has more to offer,, in my honest opinion

Lot's can go wrong with things,,, but if I have a camera and a tripod have a chance of at least getting a picture lol

22 hours ago, stash_old said:

You be needing a lorry to carry your kit then 🙂  Hope you enjoy it and the weather is kind.

Cheers mate, had thought about the lorry lol,, thinking along the lines of heq5 pro,, with sw WiFi adapter controling the mount,, extension tube for the heq5 to stop me bending all the time. Lol.

Ed80 with 0.85 sw Focal reducer/flatner,, canon 600d with meikie pro grip holding double batteries,, cables to laptop running byeos and astrotoaster,, probably take the star adventurer and second canon 600d for some fun

Booked up for the Galloway star camp October 30th to November 4th at dunroamin campsite,,

First star camp for myself,,be good to get to really dark skies and see what results come about,, struggling in Cumbernauld, Scotland with light pollution and living in a flat four flights up isn't fun ,, shifting kit about.

Big choice,, can't decide what kit to take lol😁

With the help of  David Millar and Danny Cameron members of astronomy Scotland Facebook group we have been working other film producers to do a short documentary on Scottish amateur astronomy and all going well should be filmed at the tenth anniversary of the star camp,,

Check out the star party section on sgl for more information

46 minutes ago, wackyscot said:

Hi Folks, exciting news - a film production company who work with the BBC are coming to film Galloway Star Camp. David McLean and myself have been chatting with the guys for a few months now and it's finally been given the green light.

They aim to make a mini documentary highlighting amateur astronomy in Scotland. Fingers crossed for clear skies.

 

Purchasing new kit is now forbidden lol.

Looking forward to the experience 😁

My mistake,,, think it's the VGA for usb.

The composite ones for the Sammy is the 3.5 jack in photo

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F182751926951

One I have

No problems ,, hope info helps

Hi hadyn,,

I bought the  toguard   model wr943

Power 12-24v DC. 5w

Built in speakers

VGA port via usb b port

HDMI port

3.5 mm port for composite video and audio , cable supplied

Remote control..

Been a while since I used it but good screen

Sell,, if you are having bother with it, no point flogging a dead horse, I bought a qhy5lii be I hated it, just never got anywhere with it,, chucked in a drawer for a year before I touched it again.. should have sold it a week after I got it,, jumped on the band wagon of folk praising it,, mmm righto,, wouldn't fall for that again 😁

On 29/03/2019 at 06:05, nicoscy said:

Being an admin on CN, I can only offer my perspective here as a member of SGL. 

NV is part of the broad electronically assisted astronomy theme, but in a different sense. It is purely visual real time (not near real time) observing. The use of an additional piece of gear that enhances light is akin to adding a Hb filter to see more detail on say NGC 7000. 

NV and traditional EAA (the second using a camera to either allow one image to form over the course of a few seconds, or stack images for a period of time to observe it) are thus completely different. One is truly real time observing, the other involves a more complicated setup and is not real time observing (I do both "regular" observing with eyepieces as well as traditional EAA).

SGL has 3 observers with NV gear at present. I do understand the admins wishing to create a separate section for EAA / EEVA, but NVers consider what they do as visual observing (which it is). So, they feel right at home discussing their observations in the observing subforums of SGL. Perhaps a separate NV observing subforum under the observing forum umbrella would be an adequate compromise to all?

Admittedly, at CN we are still working on trying to find a proper balance that will keep most people happy....

Nearly up to four now, lol.

I'm an admin on video astronomy forum and an ordinary member on here and CN, and it's great to get a variety of different ways of doing the hobby,, I only recently started looking more into it due to discussion on here, Vonnoggindragon has been keeping me right

Now in to mid July ,, any news on the beta testing,,,,

Try a Focal reducer

Great to see the watec still getting used,, great cameras

The humble DSLR kicking out a great image,, so overlooked these days,,, zwo is the be all to end all most people believe,, but if you have a DSLR sitting around then we'll worth a bash with free software,,

Showing my age on this post lol.

Samsung scb2000 was the main CCTV camera used back in 2011,, it was cheap to buy and had good intregration , the UK version was the better model, modded and done a lot of testing of this camera,you had to split the case and remove lens board and take out the factory fitted ir lens to let through the right light spectrum,, I fitted a 40 x 40mm fan behind the lens board to cool it, I fitted a 40 x 40mm fan on top of the top casing and 18mm fan on each side,, and as I said done a lot of testing with a fluke meter measuring the internal casing temp and running sharpcap,, in cooled it used to drop a lot of frames,, cooling on ,, never dropped a frame.

Found that if you sucked the hot air out of the casing ,,this had best results,, camera temp was at ambient,, non cooled it was 12 to 15 degree warmer inside the casing.

The Samsung was a good work horse and got better when we found that you could use a UTC,, controller ( up the coaxial).. I had my camera's at first rigged up to a usb frame grabber, then to a four channel DVR and split the signal to  the monitor , to a usb grabber and into my computer,, four cameras running all at once and recording to 1.5 TB hard drive in the DVR..

The next camera that was good was the Phil dyer camera,, or pd1 we called it,, it was a huviron CCTV camera and done double the intregration of the Sammy,, I believe if I can remember correctly ,, it had the same internals as the ln300,, the ln300 was a bit of a hit or miss camera,, some never lasted long. Few mods were attempted,. making the casing shorter,fan mod ect,, faded away as could not get parts for them.

The watec 902h,, 1/2" sensor,, mono,,, now that is a low light camera ,, closest camera you could get to night vision back in the day,, 

I still have 2 scb200 box cameras

1 scb2000 dome camera

1 Phil dyer pd1 camera

2 watec 902h cameras

Had a lot less hassle setting these up than I had setting up dslrs, and my zwo Asian 178mc ,, stuck a flip mirror on the Sammy with a 6mm eyepiece,, focus and fliip mirror to camera,, final adjustments and a few settings,, good to go.

300 was good for astrophotography but for ( video astronomy) or what ever it's called now 😂  ,, live view mode a must ,in my humble opinion

17 hours ago, Demon Barber said:

Hi Shirva,looking forward to meeting you if you make it ,can we have a name?

Regards

Mike

Hi mike,, davy McLean,, Cumbernauld,, Scotland,,.  Admin video astronomy forum

17 hours ago, hadyn42 said:

Hello Davy.

Hope to see you there.

Best regards,

Hadyn - Isle of Man

PS  I must get around to contacting Lesley about a booking very soon.....

 

Finally get to meet,,I'm all confirmed , looking forward to it

Contacted Lesley and looking to come down for the Saturday and Sunday.

Yeah great post Von..

Due to wanting to understand more on NV Astronomy and to increase awareness I've purchased an old gen 1 cascade tube and with tips and pointers from Von,, I hope to try it myself.

No way can I afford the latest gear and I know the kit I will be using is old school and donkeys old,, but it's worth a go..

I'm going to 3d print bits n bods to make up a useable set up..I will be honest I want to do it with a camera and hope to use a watec 902h ,, most oldies will know this as a very sensitive camera,

Hopefully it will work it's self out,,and a bit of Vons help 😂

Have a look at zwo cameras on first light optics ,, can pick up a camera for £200,, plenty of support and utube videos on what you can do with them

Have a look at backyard nikon, I use backyard Eos and it's a great tool,, not free but worth the money,

This can be integrated with the free programme Astrotoaster,,

Video on this software can be found on utube,, look out for Carl smith's

(Howie from Oz) 

Thanks for the update guy's,, real pity it's taking so long to get to beta testing,, you would have thought that a prototype would have been tested by a impartial astronomer and recommended any modifications before sending out a batch to be tested,, I would be a bit worried if it were me buying it especially with the cost involved.

I hope they deliver better than what was advertised and you can get some usage before dark night's start creeping in.

This tutorial was done by Howie in Australia,, well worth watching his videos if you want to use a DSLR for Astronomy