cheapest mono 'video' camera?

[rfdesigner]

Hi.

I'm looking at making up a DIMM seeing module as I want to be sure I'm not putting my obsy in the wrong place.

So I'm looking for a mono webcam or similar that is going to be semi-sensitive.

Ideally I'd like to keep the cost under £100.. If I was going to have to suffer a £200 price tag I'd go up to £250 for one of the new IMX based cameras, but I have enough other calls on my wallet with an obsy build.

So..

any suggestions for a mono camera that will stream video (USB connector ideally) windoze 7 compatible highly desirable.

Derek

[nytecam]

Can't help with query but as a matter of interest, how many options spacewise do you have for placing an obsy and does this include modest atlitude above the ground? TIA

[rfdesigner]

Can't help with query but as a matter of interest, how many options spacewise do you have for placing an obsy and does this include modest atlitude above the ground? TIA

We have a very odd plot. L shaped and within a hairs breadth of half an acre, just one row of houses (5 houses well spaced) to the south (with our house in it, due south.. which will be hyper insulated in due course), beyond that we've got several miles of New Forest. I'm thinking o placing the scope as high as I can (~3m off the ground). In the poposed position the direct south veiw will be slightly less perfect, but the SSE and SSW views will be optimal which is better for imaging. One neighbour has a double garage in the back garden with a large flat roof and I am assuming this is going to be a nightmare seeing wise, so I'm guessing avoiding that is a good move. If the garage turns out to cool very rapidly then I might concider placing the obsy directly north of it...

Camera wise I think I need a mono webcam (I'm not so sure colour is any good for evaluating seeing) will do. I think my lodestar will be too slow, unless someone else can suggest otherwise.

Derek

[nytecam]

Thanks for the info - I'm unsure how DIMM is implemented from a webcam but for a punt you could experiment on a cheap <£4 colour cams from Asda/Tesco modified and dump the colour info for your test. My Asdacam easily records to ~mag 7 at a reasonable [15-25fps] video framerate on my 12" SCT @ f/10 but presumably you'll use mag 1-2 stars for your test. See webcam mod threads in this forum

My own garden site selection decades ago was obvious rather than scientific eg as remote as possible from house at 100ft with good horizons all round especially important south along a line of back gardens for 1/2 mile but less so to west [our house] Since then a monster willow in my neighbour's garden blocks the SE sky but it's ok. My obsy floor is 3.3ft above ground with scope axes at 8ft for clearance of surrounding shrubbery. For scopes I went from 12" to 17.5" Newts then back down to 12" SCT as seeing quality dropped noticeably via the 17.5" - even got 17.5" primary refigured to no avail.

I currently run my domed 12" SCT at a blazingly 'fast' f/3.7 for suburbia - the modest efl <1200mm is fine for my DSO imaging were, in effect, 'seeing' can be largely ignored except at low altitude targets. The latter is normal. Good luck in your project.

[rfdesigner]

Thanks for the info - I'm unsure how DIMM is implemented from a webcam but for a punt you could experiment on a cheap <£4 colour cams from Asda/Tesco modified and dump the colour info for your test. My Asdacam easily records to ~mag 7 at a reasonable [15-25fps] video framerate on my 12" SCT @ f/10 but presumably you'll use mag 1-2 stars for your test. See webcam mod threads in this forum

That is excellent information. I'll work out what it means in practice after a DIMM mask (2 x 60mm diameter cut outs in a otherwise full mask.)

I'm also looking to vent the scope properly but I'd rather do it from a point of good information rather than just guessing, so the webcam will come in VERY handy for that also.

thanks

Derek