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SCB2000 shopping list

hoops86

By hoops86
in EEVA - Reports

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hoops86

hoops86

Posted
Posted

Hey Guys,

Just thought I would introduce myself to the VA forum :)

I recently purchased a scb 2000. Many thanks to Davy for walking me through it! Could not and would not have ventured down this road if it wasn’t for his help.

I just thought I would post my shopping list of things needed to get it going for anyone interested in venturing down the same route and doesnt have a Davy to hold thier hand through the proccess! :)

SCB2000 - £40

RCA cable - £4

BNC male socket plug to RCA - £2

C-mount nosepiece - £13

0.5 focal reducer - £22

12v adapter - £15

USB capture card - £8

I think thats it :)

All bought from ebay with the exception of the 12v adapter that I got from maplin – This required me to cut the end off the adapter and connect the wires to the camera.

Cheers

Chris

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hoops86

hoops86

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Ive only managed to get the Sammy out once. Had poor results to be honest haha. I need to have a play about with the settings.

I do have a question for you guys…. I see everyone talks about removing the IR filter. I watched a video on how to do it and it looks pretty easy however I was wondering what benefit this brings? Is it a requirement to remove it?

Also when live viewing when connected to my TV I was hoping for a black background but it was just full grey and not the best of views. Is that down to the TV settings or the camera settings?

I don’t suppose there is a clear list of the best settings to use with the Sammy that someone can point me in the direction of?

I did buy a capture card to use on my laptop to try this ‘stacking’ malarkey…but that turned out to be useless garbage that didn’t work. Waiting on a replacement arriving :)

Apologies for the stupid questions! This is all new to me :)

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johnno

johnno

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welcome to the AV section Chris, removing the ir filter makes it more sensitive and transparent to hydrogen-alpha and capturing red nebulosity in astro images.

you will have to play with the settings to get the right balance. Each object you point it to will more or less require a different setting and as you play around with it more you will roughly know what setting to start with,we are all on a learning curve with this cam and its capabilities and what you can pick these up for are best value for the money, that's my opinion.

Paul, DoctorD as found a useful page on settings .. https://sites.google...camera-settings hope this will help you....John

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michaelmorris

michaelmorris

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Removing the built-in IR cut filter certainly helps make nebulae more visible. This filter has a cut off that starts well before the frequency of Ha light. However, you may end up with bloated stars unless you screw in a suitable IR cut filter into the telescope adaptor. The difference is that the replcment IR cut filter you are using will not cut the Ha light. The Baader UV/IR cut filter is generally recognised as being very good, with a sharp cut off just beyond the frequency of Ha light.

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/uv-ir-filters/baader-uvir-cut-filter.html

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Carl Reade

Carl Reade

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Ive only managed to get the Sammy out once. Had poor results to be honest haha. I need to have a play about with the settings.

I do have a question for you guys…. I see everyone talks about removing the IR filter. I watched a video on how to do it and it looks pretty easy however I was wondering what benefit this brings? Is it a requirement to remove it?

Also when live viewing when connected to my TV I was hoping for a black background but it was just full grey and not the best of views. Is that down to the TV settings or the camera settings?

I don’t suppose there is a clear list of the best settings to use with the Sammy that someone can point me in the direction of?

I did buy a capture card to use on my laptop to try this ‘stacking’ malarkey…but that turned out to be useless garbage that didn’t work. Waiting on a replacement arriving :)

Apologies for the stupid questions! This is all new to me :)

Welcome to video Chris, the grey is LP as far as I know, I get it too. When you take a max exposure with the lens cap on its gone so it must be light the chip is picking up. No apologies required at all and no silly questions on here :smiley:

Cheers Carl

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hoops86

hoops86

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Ok so I had a pretty frustrating night last night! My new capture card arrived yesterday. After messing around copying files here and there I finally got it working on my netbook.

I decided to do a quick test on Mizar. Everything seemed to work ok. Was able to focus without too much problems and capture some frames.

Next step was to apply the best settings as per that link above. Spent a while playing about with the settings and got them exactly as advised on that link.

Next step was to align up the scope. Damn… clouds everywhere! I figured it wasn’t really needed as I could find M13 pretty easily. So pop the eyepiece in and found it very quickly. Plugged the camera in and spent ages trying to find it! Only to realise that I had forgot to refocus the camera after using the eyepiece. Once focused and after about 10 mins trying to get it in view. I managed to capture some frames. Very very poor quality tho.

Clouds were everywhere by then and my netbook had just died of battery so gave up and went inside for a bit.

Came back out and the sky had cleared a little.

So back to the eyepiece and got M13 in view. Then swapped in the camera. Again spent ages trying to get it in view! Randomly I hit one of the buttons on the camera and the menu appeared…. OMFG im such a tool! I didn’t save the settings!!! So I go back inside and enter the settings. Come out again and clouds everywhere lol. Slight break in the clouds near Mizar (the star to the right of mizar) so I aim there. Straight away I could notice a big difference! The back ground was much much blacker!

After about 20 mins the sky cleared a bit near M13 so again….eyepiece in… get it in view….swap in camera… refocus using the closest star then try and get it in view….spend like 30-40 mins trying to get it in view with no luck! Figured why not try M57 see if I have more luck. Eyepiece in… found it in seconds….camera in…no where to be seen lol

By this time I was tired, cold and annoyed haha. Packed up and went inside :(

My lessons learned:

1: Stop being lazy and align the scope!

2: Save the settings!!!

3: Remember and refocus before searching for something!

Better luck next time haha!

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michaelmorris

michaelmorris

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I've made a laminated cheat sheet which gives me relative focus positions (for each scope) for a variety of eyepiece, camera/focal reducer/barlow) combinations, Where possible the focus positions are recorded in absolute position (for refrcators). For my SCT the positions are number of turns clockwise of antilockwise from various reference focus positions (eyepiece/cameras). It took a while to put together, but has saved it's wait in gold in saving the frustration of not being to find targets.

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Carl Reade

Carl Reade

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Chris I would say everyones been there , I certainly have :grin: . One thing which may help, the camera has a similar FOV to a 6mm eyepiece so has quite a magnification. When I have aligned etc, I put in an eyepiece as close to that as possible and then make sure its centered. Then pop the cam in and always focus at low intergration so your focusing near live. Its vertually impossible to focus at high sense up.

I generally keep the sense up menu on screen until Ive got focus then kick it up to high. I have recorded with the menu on screen in the past :grin: another one not to do.

Cheers Carl

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hoops86

hoops86

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Cheers Carl! will keep that in mind. Off the top of my head im sure i had sense up turned off as per the settings guide.

Im still to remove the IR filter. I ordered some tiny screw drivers so will remove it when they arrive.

Will purchase that filter you guys mentioned too.

Question...i keep reading that people use this 'mask' thing to get perfect focus. I havent really had much problems focusing before... i had a look and its only like 15 quid or something. Think its worth buying one?

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hoops86

hoops86

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Hey Paul

Light pollution is brutal in my garden! I do have a cheap skate "moon and sky glow" filter i bought for around a tenner. But to be honest ive noticed all it does is make my view worse haha.

I guess it makes sense to get a multi purpose one!

Cheers

Chris

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shirva

shirva

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I bought a bah..banhat ...bannanatov...aye the Russian blokes focus mask..lol .defo should have one...I've focused on a star and thought it bang on..checked with mask and found that it wasn't close....moral of this adventure is.....bag on focus better images. ...Davy

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hoops86

hoops86

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Quick question...

im just about to attack the camera with a screw driver to remove the ir filter... when i remove it...does it make the camera useless until i have a new filter? should i wait till i have one before removing this?

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