Pc-free video astronomy?

[cathalferris]

I can see that most people here appear to view their camera output on a pc screen, using a pc to capture and process the image stream.

Are there many that just use a 12v tv screen to show the images?

Myself, I bought a small and cheap car reversing camera from eBay to show my scb-4000 images, works well enough for my proof of concept idea using my tablet for the mount control. I think I'll have to upgrade to a better screen at some point, as I want to be able to do some outreach using this setup.

Alternatively, I may resurrect my eeepc and do video capture with a cheap USB capture device, and try to stack and dark frame the output, and see how deep I can go with x512 sense-up and a 6" f5.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[Stu]

I have both options, a tablet PC with video capture and a 7" LCD TV screen. I do find that the quality on the tablet is much better than the screen so that is my preferred option, or it would be if the cloud ever cleared!

[stash_old]

I have/use both - tablet and Reversing camera screen(7 inch) / a small LCD TV with composite input. Obviously the latter is instant as the Samsung outputs Video in composite mode so no Wins/Mac os/Android in the way - and no video capture device - but the quality depends on the output from the camera( I use the reversing screen,which are low quality for checking alignment and as I use a T piece at the camera end I can leave it attached to the scope(but switch off). The other end of the T-piece goes back to my tablet or PC to the frame grabber and where the remote UTC resides(sometime move it to change settings first time). I currently use a Linx 1010 tablet as this is one of the few that has 2 full size USB ports and a micro charging port which can extend the life of the tablet power level(i have run 5 hrs continuous so far) . The tablet runs Win 10 and I have had running,at the same time ,BYE,Sharpcap,Stellarium Scope/Stellarium and EQMOD/Ascom but i have moved Stellarium to another PC leaving Stell Scope running on the table as Stellarium hogs processing especially graphics - IMO.

To come back to your point it depends on the output type from your camera - composite,usb etc and you can get Vga/hdmi converters to change to output to use "dumb" monitors most of which,if they have a separate power brick, will run of DC (check voltage !!!) - its a case of matching the 2 - camera and monitor. Plus weight is a factor unless you are using it in a fixed obsys set up - although at least they are not CRT tubes and a lot lighter!!!

[DoctorD]

Hi

I have used a small LCD monitor (reversing cam/mirror) with my SDC435 - here's a view of M1 taken with my Skywatcher 102MAk and F3.3 reducer:

I still use this as my portable set up whilst camping on my SW Synscan AZ mount, however my main focus is remote observing from the warmth of my study whilst the scope is outside on the drive - here an HEQ5/EQMAC and Lodestar-C/StarlightLive give me the remote experience I'm after along with much longer integration times.

My Macbook has a very good screen - even when used with an analogue video capture dongle so I ended up using this most of the time anyway.

Clear skies

Paul