Was this camera worth a punt?

[jaydeeuk1]

Spotted a camera module on ebay which looked interesting. Its a usb camera module with the aptima ar0130 cmos chip, the same that is in the ZWO ASI 120 camera that retails for around £200. For £28 in delivery it looked ok. I've already got a logitech 4000 and a £2 xbox live camera i'll be trying out on my new telescope after xmas (celestron 127 slt mak)

 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321596596620?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I'm thinking of adding a cooler and making a case for it. Standard webcam 1.25" adapters should screw right in. In future i'd like a decent mount and perhaps get in to proper astrophotography and it might work as a guider.

Waste of time or worth a risk for under £30?

[todd8137]

Hi Jay sounds good if it does work with capture software ,to,grab images ect would be interested in that just for moon drift stuff

Any more info on the camera

Pat

[jaydeeuk1]

I emailed a few questions to them, such as exposure, drivers, software etc (looks like an sdk is available from aptina) but from their response which answered nowt,i don't think english is their first language. Or 2nd. Or 3rd

[D4N]

There are a few issues with it compared to the ASI120.

Firstly it's colour, depends if you want that as to if that's bad.

It appears to be capped at 30FPS, that's much lower than the ASI.

No mention of a binning mode.

It won't have an ST4 port.

You will have difficulty getting support of its not working with you guiding or capture program.

Won't have the Telescope ready fittings the ASI has.

Other than that could well be worth s punt at that price.

TSED70Q, iOptron Smart EQ pro, ASI-120MM, Finepix S5 pro.

[jaydeeuk1]

Is the

There are a few issues with it compared to the ASI120.

Firstly it's colour, depends if you want that as to if that's bad.

It appears to be capped at 30FPS, that's much lower than the ASI.

No mention of a binning mode.

It won't have an ST4 port.

You will have difficulty getting support of its not working with you guiding or capture program.

Won't have the Telescope ready fittings the ASI has.

Other than that could well be worth s punt at that price.


TSED70Q, iOptron Smart EQ pro, ASI-120MM, Finepix S5 pro.

The asi i was comparing it to (mc) is also colour, might be wrong but thought the mono has a different chip.

[JamesF]

It claims to be a UVC camera, so it should "just work" if it genuinely does adhere to the standard.  The drivers are in Windows (and Linux) by default.

Now for the bad news...

The frame type for which the frame rates are given is MJPEG.  You really don't want that.  It's (sometimes very) lossy compression and not at all suited to astroimaging.  It does also appear

that you can get the frames in YUYV format which might give better frame rates, but it is also lossy compression.  What's really required is a raw frame.

And it also appears to have automatic gain control and no way to turn it off.  You really want manual gain control.  It's possible it can do that and just doesn't say so in the spec, I guess.  Could be that they consider brightness the same as gain, which it isn't really.

James

[jaydeeuk1]

Yeah can see it says AGC, might be the spanner in the works if it really can't be overridden. The logitech cam only supports yuyv and this is only a few quid more so wasn't expecting it to support raw at all. Still, nothing ventured nothing gained and I'll no doubt find uses with it outside of astro imaging.

Also im viewing this on a mobile, what does the tick icon mean next to everyone's posts? If I click it it changes to a cross and nowt seems to happen.

[JamesF]

Could the tick be the "like" button?  No idea.  I'm not very mobile myself

James

[jaydeeuk1]

Appears you are correct. I wasn't able to 'like' posts before, I presume because of my post count.

[jaydeeuk1]

It claims to be a UVC camera, so it should "just work" if it genuinely does adhere to the standard.  The drivers are in Windows (and Linux) by default.

Now for the bad news...

The frame type for which the frame rates are given is MJPEG.  You really don't want that.  It's (sometimes very) lossy compression and not at all suited to astroimaging.  It does also appear

that you can get the frames in YUYV format which might give better frame rates, but it is also lossy compression.  What's really required is a raw frame.

And it also appears to have automatic gain control and no way to turn it off.  You really want manual gain control.  It's possible it can do that and just doesn't say so in the spec, I guess.  Could be that they consider brightness the same as gain, which it isn't really.

James

Camera has arrived. Had a quick play with it. Its small so ive got a few ideas on mods, and the rear is nice and flat begging for a peliter cooler. Allows yuv2 mode, no raw unfortunately.

Sharpcap allows me to alter gain (despite being advertised as auto gain control), exposure to around 1s and a load of other stuff. Changing exposure alters the fps from 30 to approx 1s... it will only allow 30fps max at all resolutions but from what people say about the xbox and logitech cam 20fps seems better for planetary imaging. Be interesting to see if the 1s exposure is because sharpcap can't see all options or if its hardwired.

Had a quick play vs an xbox webcam and a logitech 4000 pro just in a dark room.

It seems far more sensitive and a heck of a lot less noisy than the xbox camera, and at least as good as the logitech camera and seems less noisy.

No dead pixels either. Can't wait to try it in anger, but first impressions are for £28 its excellent (no customs duty or vat charged).

[knobby]

Looks promising

[jaydeeuk1]

Is the author of sharpcap on this forum? Id offer to send it him to see what he can get out of it.

[jaydeeuk1]

I've also been given access to the SDK for the aptima chip after signing some non disclosure agreement, not done any c/c++ in over a decade but will be interesting to see if anything else can be tweaked out on this device.

[D4N]

Is the author of sharpcap on this forum? Id offer to send it him to see what he can get out of it.

Head over to Astronomy Shed for Sharpcap support.

TSED70Q, iOptron Smart EQ pro, ASI-120MM, Finepix S5 pro.

[CloudsEverywhere]

Camera has arrived. Had a quick play with it. Its small so ive got a few ideas on mods, and the rear is nice and flat begging for a peliter cooler. Allows yuv2 mode, no raw unfortunately.

Sharpcap allows me to alter gain (despite being advertised as auto gain control), exposure to around 1s and a load of other stuff. Changing exposure alters the fps from 30 to approx 1s... it will only allow 30fps max at all resolutions but from what people say about the xbox and logitech cam 20fps seems better for planetary imaging. Be interesting to see if the 1s exposure is because sharpcap can't see all options or if its hardwired.

Had a quick play vs an xbox webcam and a logitech 4000 pro just in a dark room.

It seems far more sensitive and a heck of a lot less noisy than the xbox camera, and at least as good as the logitech camera and seems less noisy.

No dead pixels either. Can't wait to try it in anger, but first impressions are for £28 its excellent (no customs duty or vat charged).

Have you by any chance managed to do any further testing?

I was wondering if you can correctly set exposure and gain through the UVC driver in PHD guiding.

Any further information would be very much appreciated.