Electro Finding and Remote Operation

[Macavity]

Spurred on by Karl's recent success in this area, I was sufficiently "bottom-kicked" to try

to get my remote setup working. lol. Also I found the source of annoying backlash in my 

HEQ5 (ironically rather easily fixed!) which had been irritating me for ages and AGES!

A while back, I mentioned use of one of these little Cams in a (Budget) Electro Finder.

http://www.cameras-cctv.com/2005xa-pinhole-camera

I use another one for observatory monitoring too. Now supposedly back in stock... 

I have anyway now finalised the construction of "Finder Cam". After several iterations:

As before, I just unscrewed the pinhole (lens) from the camera. The nose-piece is stolen 

from a spare Skywatcher "default" eyepiece and "Araldited" directly to the Camera body.

The FINDER is now one of those standard 8x50 straight-through, default TS/GSO things. 

My ever-helpful "mate with lathe" removed about 1mm off the diameter of the 2" -> 1.25"

adaptor, so it fits inside the "OTA". Bit of tape on one side, a gentle "whack" and it stays!

The focal length is ~180mm (F3.6) The 6.4 x 4.8 chip should give 2 Degrees Diagonal?

I use my recently bought (£16) 3.5" screen for *portable* debugging! I have attached

a sheet of transparent film, with diagonal lines, over the screen via some Sellotape!

So what did it do in practice? First the terrestrial test on local c/heating Chimneys:

The top of the frame show the view through the drop down end of my observatory. Note

the tiny chimney circled! Lower right is a view through the Main scope 8"/F4 (f=800mm)

Newt  + Watec. The FoV is approx. 30x20 arc min. (A diagonal of approx. "One Luna").

"Finder Cam" (lower left) is about what I expect (hope!) too... about 2 Deg field? Okay!

Now for the night test! Since I intend this for "remote astronomy", I tried to do a REAL

"feasibility test" - No cheating allowed! Scope / Focus / Watec control, video output

now ALL to / from inside the house and via the (now 4 Cat6 + 3 Coax!) 30m cables.

As ever, I start setting up in the obsy: HEQ5 in "home position" etc. For the moment

I run inside: Get CdC / EQMod to slew to the First Start (Aldeberan). Back to Obsy: 

As ever (again!), things are a "bit off" in the RDF. I moved scope manually to centre

Aldebaran in RDF - Almost central in Electro-Finder too. Now I can retire *indoors*!

Indoors (from here on) I centre Aldebaran exactly in Electro-Finder... Yes, it is also

acceptably central in the Main Scope. I now try a (fairly conservative!) Slew to M45

(Aldebaran to the Pleiades!): This is then the view through Finder Cam... Hurrah! 

A bit out-of-focus on the larger screen? Some COMA due to the Heath Robinson

attachment of Camera? But generally OK? The pattern of Mag 3-4 stars is clear.

Some traces of the Mag 6-7 too! But basically I can now "Remote Find" stuff.

Thus embiggened, I slew over to M1. As ever the Newt / Watec showed little in

"planetary" mode, but step up 256x integ. (10s) and there was M1 (Crab Neb):

At this point bright Moonlit Clouds were scudding past - No Videos were shot.

I decided to quit while I was winning. lol. Most of the BASICS seem to work now?

There are (of course) still "issues" with my Remote Astronomy. E.g. I still have to

establish a *truly reliable* USB link over 30m. Contact with the Obsy is still lost on

a two hourly (or so) basis? But I can apparently "Keep Calm and Reconnect". 

Perhaps with a (much more) expensive USB 2.0 over Cat6 link? If all else fails, I

can fall back on "TeamViewer"? But I hope I can add this to the general story of

success re. (remote) Video Astronomy! "Gawd Bless us every one"? [Tiny Tim]

[allcart]

Excellent job Chris. I am starting to love the ease and comfort of indoors astro. I don't have an Obs, so the dining room is next best thing. I tested one of my setups on NSN a couple of nights ago and remote control and remote focusing worked very nicely. I can see that I will have to make an electro finder for myself now. 

[DoctorD]

Great work Chris

I've been looking at these as an alternative to the board cam:

http://www.securitycamera2000.com/products/Bullet-Camera-650TVL-Starlight-3D%252dDNR-Sense%252dup-x512-0.001-Lux-OSD.html

Might be able to remove the 2.8mm lens

Clear skies

Paul

[allcart]

Looks like it could work, (not that I know much ) and well cheap. Looks to me like the lens will unscrew.