Low light camera option?

[Mukv]

Greetings

Just found this on Ebay while hiding from the clouds here in Mansfield.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ultra-Low-Light-Starlight-FPV-Camera-0-00008-Lux-800tvl-1-2-Sensor-/261684396446?&_trksid=p2056016.l4276

the video looks interesting but would it be worth a play on a scope?

Andy

[riklaunim]

It's a basic CCTV camera board. Exposures are short, quality limited, interlaced shutter.

[Macavity]

The quoted sensitivity is 1/4 that of specialist integrating video cameras like the Watec 120N+.

But therein lies a clue. I suspect it must use "sense-up" (internal integration) to achieve this.

It will likely not be at the forefront of chip technology - which adds a further 4x on the former.

But the main issue will be *automatic* (lack of manual) gain control (AGC). These sort of cams

have uses as finder cameras, all sky cameras etc. - Probably reaching about naked eye visual

magnitude. Sadly, there are no "free lunches" re. genuine, dedicated, Astro Video cameras.  

On the other hand, such techniques can work out cheaper than state of art classical imaging.

But then, as is also known, the objectives of such things are perhaps not entirely the same...

[Mukv]

it was in a finder scope role with a live view on screen that my thoughts were drifting not as a serious imaging camera but as you say no such thing as a free lunch, never thought of the all sky element maybe worth a punt to try it in both roles.Will have to wait and see how long these clouds last!

Thanks riklaunim and Chris

[Gina]

With a maximum integration time of 1/50 sec it will struggle to see stars in an all-sky camera.  I've been trying a QHY5 for all sky and that's barely sensitive enough even with 15s integration.  The physics dictates how many photons you can collect in a given time and 0.02s is not going to collect many at night.  Also, at that price it is not exacly the cheapest low light CCTV camera - I got some cheaper ones direct from China!

[pete_l]

I'm very impressed with my LN300-11673 vid cams. So far I've bought 2 direct from China and will probably get another one soon.

They are fully enclosed and have on-board video integration of up to 10 seconds (or 20 sec. if you really want to push it). They have a C-mount connector for user-supplied lenses. You also need to supply them with power and cabling as all you get is the camera, which is about 6 x 4 x 4 cm.