The (digital) future of eyepieces?

[Luke]

I've been wondering, given how sensitive cameras are getting, whether at some point in the near future, our eyepieces will start to use sensors and build up a digital image, allowing us to see colour. Or is there already something like this on the market?

I can see why some of the video astronomers like to use video, to bring out more detail and colour, while at the same time, I love the view at the eyepiece.

Will these two worlds merge? WIll our eyepieces become digital? Just wondering what the not too distant future may hold.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

For deep sky, where sensitivity trumps resolution, maybe, but for planets, I do not know. I think you would need very fine displays in order to match current optics. Very high resolution displays require very high resolution cameras, and very high resolution cameras need very small pixels, implying very small electron wells to store the signal. Small electron wells spell low dynamic range. We need very difference technology (which may be developed) to achieve these conflicting goals of high resolution, high dynamic range, and high sensitivity. The other advantage is that my EPs do not need batteries

[JamesF]

Sounds a lot like the cameras/software that integrate successive frames to build up an image already.  Put a display on the back of one of those cameras and there's your eyepiece, more or less

I agree with Michael's points too.  And I think there will always be people who want the immediacy and intimacy with the sky that you get with just glass.  I very much enjoy imaging, but there's something quite special about direct visual observation.

James

[Psychobilly]

Sony already have Digital Binos....

Peter...

[paulastro]

I seem to remember that some time ago (5+ years at least I think) there was a digital eyepiece advertised.  I'm sure a test report was published somewhere too, probably in S&T.  From memory it was some sort of image intensifying device that gave a greenish image.  It was claimed that it could improve the performance of your telescope by a significant factor.  Perhaps the fact I can't remember the name of it and that it is clearly no longer available signifies that it wasn't very effective!

[Zakalwe]

Video camera with a WIFI link to Google Glasses? Or to other variant of Google Glasses that "project" a 5 metre screen in your vision?

[Macavity]

I seem to remember that some time ago (5+ years at least I think) there was a digital eyepiece advertised.  I'm sure a test report was published somewhere too, probably in S&T.  From memory it was some sort of image intensifying device that gave a greenish image.  It was claimed that it could improve the performance of your telescope by a significant factor.  Perhaps the fact I can't remember the name of it and that it is clearly no longer available signifies that it wasn't very effective!

Could be this: http://www.ceoptics.com/ (But I'll have to kill you now).

Reviewed on CN: http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=67

More recently: http://www.astronomydepartment.us/celestial-coordinates/big-gun-number-3-image-intensifiers.html

[Stu_2011]

The whole eyes vs CCDs fascinates me really.

I think in this age of amazing equipment we tend to think that the eye is second rate compared to good CCD cameras but is this really case? A healthy, dark adapted eye in total darkness can see single photons and the signal to noise of images you see through an eye piece are incredible. Think of how dark and noise free the background space is when looking through a scope in a good dark location.

Where CCDs win out is in the fact that that they can collect signals for hundreds of seconds and then download the integrated signal to a PC or Mac. The "frame rate" of the eye is effectively fixed at around 25Hz so the brain seems an image every 0.04 seconds and we can't really change that. Would any current CCD return a decent image with low noise when running at 25Hz?

I just hope my eyes stay healthy and cameras get better and better so I can enjoy the best of both worlds. I love those diamonds on black velvet moments you sometimes get visually and I equally love watching a 300 second sub appearing on the PC screen.

Thanks

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk - now Free

[Raga]

I agree with James. For me, although I love AP, you can't beat looking directly at what your observing rather than seeing It on a screen.

[Stu]

I reckon the answer is likely to be 'Yes' at some point in the future Luke, just not sure how long it will take. Personally I will always prefer pure visual observing, but if there were a hassle free method of viewing DSO's live at the eyepiece, in colour as you describe, I reckon I might give it a go! There are some pretty high pixel density displays out there these days, and I imagine you could package it all quite neatly, it wouldn't even have to look anything like a standard ep, just fit into a 1.25 or 2" fitting and away you go.

I actually did think along similar but slightly different lines a while back, which was basically a Goto scope with a built-in high sensitivity camera, integrating and processing capability and a display either built in or just connected in some way, possibly even wireless. Not saying I would want one, but I could see it appealing to the next generation of observers perhaps!

Stu

[BillP]

I believe it is inevitable and desirable.  The technology is really there although not yet put into an astronomy product.  It will make it to cameras first.  Canon has a new sensor technology where sensitivity rival the human eye.  http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/13/visualized-canon-35mm-cmos-sensor-fireflies/  So imagine a hybrid electro-optical eyepiece...bottom half provides the focal length needed (so will still have a glass component), then mid section has this Canon sensor.  CPU processing and software now give you ability to make transformations to the image the CCD is picking up in real time to adjust for brightness, contrast, color, basically the common stuff done in Photoshop and the like, then the CCD send the image to one of the newer 5 million dot visual finder displays (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/01/5-million-dot-electronic-viewfinder-makes-glass-obsolete/), and then above that is a simple glass element to view it up close like is standard on camera electronic viewfinders which has a diopter wheel to adjust to each person's eyesight.  So a company could sell the upper electronic half od the unit, then make a series of lower half mating units of the optics necessary for different focal lengths.  At some point in time, when the CCD sensors start utilizing several gigapixels, then the lower glass units could be eliminated probably as the CCD would have sufficient density for zooming without loss of resolution to the eye.  Wouldn't it be cool to have an eyepiece like this and with a wireless remote simply boost the contrast or color saturation or brightness, or accomplish filtration on the fly to selectively transmit or block wavelengths, etc.  Has lots and lots of cool possibilities IMO.

[AlexB67]

For me visual will be what it is, what the eye can see and the wavelengths the eye can detect, to break that divorces the intimacy of visual observing.  imaging is imaging and visual is visual in the end of the day for me and they  are two very different things.  I mean we can never see infrared or other frequencies either but that is not to say they don't create interesting images in their own right, and in particular of course useful for research.

I'd be more interested in an eyepiece that could in real time correct for atmospheric disturbance and make it so we can see down to diffraction limited optics without the atmospheric effects, pipedreams    In fact solutions do exist already that take into account atmospheric effects on the VLT research telescopes for imaging purposes, but I am a bit vague right now on the details of it.

[Macavity]

Certainly interesting! No expert, and definitely to be taken with a grain of salt:

With the sort of chip used in high sensitivity (fairly recent) B&W Video Cams, the limiting magnitude in a similar optical configuration (aperture / focal length) as the EYE is... actually quite close to that of the Eye? <wink> Well... Give or take a "couple" of magnitudes - Ignoring resolution, noise etc. etc. 

http://www.prc68.com/I/Mag.shtml (Some fun numbers / ideas to play with?)

The latest Watec chip is a factor four up in sensitivity on the reference cameras above - Perhaps now "greater" than the eye... BUT limiting magnitude is indeed mostly dependent on increased exposure / frame integration time. Moreover, the technology has hit an end stop? Chips are hard to make, develop hot pixels - Are Noisy. Security cams won't require greater sensitivity / need larger chips etc. etc. 

No "free lunch"? Some sort of "New Technology" is needed...

if you want "movie" rate images of faint DSOs on screen?

[Luke]

Some interesting points that I hadn't considered, thanks for the thoughts.

During some observing sessions I really wish I had an easy way to record my visual view. I wonder if a digital eyepiece could take snapshots for you and embed the name of the target. A few times I've tried making brief notes on the DSO's I've seen, but a visual library of everything I looked at, or that I really liked, would be very nice!

[Pig]

I don't think the eyepiece will change other than the quality aspects

There is potential for zoom eyepieces to be digitally controlled for optimum view

There is more chance of a digital human eye, due to the financial return.

[Macavity]

Ah, this was the thing / review I was probably remembering - Biff... I mean BIPH.

http://www.nightvisionastronomy.com/

The claim is that the telescope aperture (light gathering anyway) is effectively "tripled" (in real time) with channel plate tubes. As a conservative estimate I would still suggest current B&W video cameras (Watec etc.) at least "doubled" the aperture, albeit over a few sec? I could just about see the horsehead nebula in such "pseudo real time" with an 8" / F4 Newt. For £600 rather than $4000, with rather simpler (longer life?) technology, no "restricted" technology etc.

Putting information onto images would be very useful. Again, with standard video technology, I recall someone introducing on-screen TIME STAMP information inline onto a video stream with a commercial device? A few hundred quid? The technical challenge was in extracting the exact time of the image for (asteroid) occultation studies. Most of us only want to write something pithy?