Brightstar Mammut any good?

[polaris_jerry]

Hi all

I've never done any video astronomy, been doing DSLR stuff up to now.  But I'm looking to buy a camera for the school astronomy club so I can show kids live images on screen.

I was thinking of the Brightstar Mammut.  I've got a Phillips Toucam and a QHY5 which do the moon and planets reasonably ok.  I don't think the Mammut will be that great for lunar/planetary due to the interlaced scanning ?

Does anyone have any good/bad experiences with the Mammut in this kind of application?

Will it show me DSOs live on screen quite well?  I will teach the kids how to stack images as well, but I kind of want the "wow" of looking at DSOs live too.

Any help much appreciated before I spend school money!!  

If you think there are better cameras out there please tell me.

Thanks

Jeremy

[Carl Reade]

Hi Jeremy cant say about the Brightstar, Your budget would be a big factor in choice of video camera.

Carl

[Dragon Man]

G'day Jeremy,

The Brighstar Mammut is a Monochrome camera using Sony's 1/2" ICX429ALL sensor.

It is not an integrating camera like a Video camera but a long exposure CCD imaging camera.

It does have an exposure range from 1 millisecond to 50 hours.

If you were to spend the schools money to achieve Live Video Astronomy you would be better of getting a dedicated AstroVideo camera.

In the medium price bracket:

From the U.K. there is the PD1 kit which is a Modified Mintron AstroVideo camera (colour) and seems to get good reviews in here by those using them.

From Canada/USA there is the handmade AstroVideo camera, the Mallincam Junior Pro (colour). Excellent reviews.

In the lower price range there is the Samsung SCB-2000 security camera but it will need modifications and addition of power supply, nosepiece, etc. I know school committees don't like to spend money on items that aren't Plug-n-play, so the Samsung may be out of the running.

[Schorhr]

Hello Jeremy,

I'd say go with the PD1, I just started to dabble with it, but it seems to have potential.

Also I allways find it difficult to have one piece of equipment when working with more then a few students...

;-)

It's amazing that the pd along with a cheap £170 goto mount and telescope costs about the same or less then just a commercial astro cam, while providing pretty nice results.

[polaris_jerry]

I've got about £400 to spend, but if I save on that then I can buy some more equipment for the club.  

What's the real difference between a CCD camera that displays the output to a laptop vs a Video camera displaying to a TV screen?  Is there any benefit of one over the other?

Thanks for your help!!

[Dragon Man]

Astrovideo cameras can display on a computer or a TV screen, or a monitor.

Astrovideo cameras can even display on all of them at the same time 

Whereas CCD Imaging cameras will only work through a computer.

With an Astrovideo camera you can have a small monitor out at the scope if you need to focus out there, plus a large TV inside or outside for others to watch, plus use the computer to control it all, or to watch, and also at the same time run a projector from the computer and display the image 10 feet tall on the side of a building. 

Video is extremely handy for Public nights and outreach because lots of people can watch in lots of different ways, all at the same time, and you still have total control at the computer.

Or just plug it into a single monitor or TV and view by yourself.

[Schorhr]

It's not so much the TV-Output but the internal stacking (Sense-Up/Integration);

Of course a camera with identical specs that offers USB itself would be favorable, but USB grabbers will do, add some compression though.

The big deal about the security cameras are their low price and sensitive sensors.

As they process the image internally, you will see deep-sky objects right away without further processing, and more or less live. It's great for presentations, with the option to process the images later.

If imaging it the main target, a 450D DSLR could be another choice perhaps? And the school could use it for other projects as well :-)

[Joves]

+1 here for the Mallincam Jr Pro. I've watched one in use on Night Skies Network and it was amazing. From what I can see, it comes pretty close to rivalling the Xtreme, which it basically the same camera minus the Peltier cooling and possibly a slightly lower class chip. These things do help, mind you, but also triple the price! The Jr Pro's go for approx. US$600 which is a steal when you consider I paid that for an Orion Starshoot Deep Space Video 2 not so long ago. I enjoyed that camera but they are absolute chalk and cheese when it comes to capabilities!

[Dragon Man]

Another difference too Jeremy is that Video is a constant stream of integrating images, whereas CCD imaging is a single long exposure downloaded at set times.

Say you set the both cameras to do 5 seconds on a Globular cluster.

You would set the video camera to 5 seconds integration, it will continuously send a video feed made of 5 second clumps of integrated frames in a constant flow, forever until you stop it.

The CCD camera will take a single 5 second long image then download it, then another 5 second image and download that one etc continuously until you stop it.

Totally different processes.

[Paul81]

Another difference is that CCDs are 16-bit per pixel, whereas the video cameras are 8-bit range. This means that the CCD has a greater dynamic range to capture a wider range of detail, and because you need to scale the image back to 8-bit to display via a computer display, you are able to play with the extra dynamic range in various ways which can yield more detail (for example linear scaling, arcsinh or log scaling).

The Brightstar looks a great camera, its a proven sensor and with cooling - great combo!

I am currently making a program to turn the SX Lodestar into a live view camera (see my other posts on this sub-forum). The ambition is to give a video camera style experience, but with the benefit of CCD. Plus it will live stack sub-exposures for as long as you are observing the target (with dark frame subtraction thrown in). Still WIP, but coming long...

[Dragon Man]

Another difference is that CCDs are 16-bit per pixel, whereas the video cameras are 8-bit range. This means that the CCD has a greater dynamic range to capture a wider range of detail, and because you need to scale the image back to 8-bit to display via a computer display, you are able to play with the extra dynamic range in various ways which can yield more detail (for example linear scaling, arcsinh or log scaling).

The Brightstar looks a great camera, its a proven sensor and with cooling - great combo!

I am currently making a program to turn the SX Lodestar into a live view camera (see my other posts on this sub-forum). The ambition is to give a video camera style experience, but with the benefit of CCD. Plus it will live stack sub-exposures for as long as you are observing the target (with dark frame subtraction thrown in). Still WIP, but coming long...

Exciting times ahead with innovations like yours Paul 

[polaris_jerry]

All very interesting advice, thanks to everyone.  I did look at the Mallincam Jr Pro, it looks very interesting.  I did wonder though if the Mammut with cooling would give a superior image.

I guess the constant stream output from the video cameras would enable more timely collection of avi's that could later be stacked in something like Registax?

Does anyone have any advice on the performance of live video cameras on the moon and planets as opposed to DSOs?

[shirva]

hi Jeremy,,the mammut with its cooling would be on paper the better camera, but ive heard on the forum somewhere there has been issues with drivers, I don't know if this has been resolved as such...what about the loadstar it's had good reviews and a few of the guys on here are working on programs to make it even better...for a quick fix I would recommend the phil dyer camera for £104 delivered for basic model and think £160 for full kit ..inc power supply(transformer) usb grabber and all you need to get started is a brilliant choice...the Samsung scb2000 still requires modded once purchased by removing the built in ir filter and fitting a astronomy ir filter to stop the stars bloating......davy

[polaris_jerry]

That PD1 camera looks pretty impressive for the price.  I reckon that might be the way to go at first, I can always move towards CCD later as the club develops!

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

[Dragon Man]

Good decision Jeremy.

The PD1 is a great way to start in Astrovideo. It is ready to use and also has twice the integration of the other starter cameras.

When you are ready to go up to very long integrations for fainter objects then you can look at better cameras like the Mallincams if the need ever arises.

I can imagine that soon other brands will start making looong integration cameras too as popularity for AstroVideo cameras grows. 

[Nibor]

That PD1 camera looks pretty impressive for the price.  I reckon that might be the way to go at first, I can always move towards CCD later as the club develops!

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

Jeremy,

If you are looking to buy a PD1 - do consider the one with the  remote control keypad kit - the keypad allows remote control of camera settings - I use mine from a warm room but I have found the camera adjustments much less fiddly even when using a monitor outdoors.  

I am considering making up a shorter lead for this latter purpose as the supplied one must be 10 metres long!!

It isn't mentioned on the website so a telephone call is required!!

[polaris_jerry]

Thanks for the tip Nibor.

By the way, is there any special software I should be using or will the standard supplied software be suitable?

Thanks

Jeremy

[Schorhr]

Any grabber software will do, usualy the USB grabbers (4-10 €) come with software.

The free software Sharpcap is pretty nifty, allowing all sort of recording settings, AND the Gamma/Contrast/Device settings are right next to the preview frame (while on regular recording software you will have to switch to the menu and device settings all of the time)

[Nibor]

Thanks for the tip Nibor.

By the way, is there any special software I should be using or will the standard supplied software be suitable?

Thanks

Jeremy

Jeremy,

I find that the supplied software allows a "Snapshot" capture as well as a timed video facility (if you want)

You are able to adjust the video image for visual observing but I did find that the package did include a lot of software that I don't think that I will need. I just use the Powerdirector element.

I am just starting out in VA and my next step is to use Registax (or something similar) and I will then know how Powerdirector integrates into the image production process. The software does allow AVI files to be captured.

I am not sure if the remote version of the PD1 is available without the full "kit" but you could ask.

HTH