Live View Camera

[Hertford Stargazer]

Due to a slowly progressive medical condition I'm finding it harder and harder to look through an eyepiece, the condition causes involuntary movement of my neck and head which becomes worse the harder I try to remain still. I reckon I've got a good few years of being capable of eyepiece observation but it is becoming an increasingly frustrating experience often ending in me breaking down my kit with the intention of giving up and selling everything.

At the present I'm not wanting to go down the path of imaging so I'm wondering what astro cam would give me the best live view on a computer screen, I assume this avenue would rule out observing deep sky objects but I'm hoping planets and certainly the moon are achievable.

Thanks for any feedback.   
 

[Tinker1947]

A highly sensitive CCD would allow viewing DSO's like M81, M51 a 5 second image with a Lodestar and my ST-80 used as a guide camera works well, the newer Liveveiw CCD's do a very good job when used in a video mode....

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/atik-cameras/atik-infinity-monocolour-video-astronomy-guiding-imaging-camera.html

[pete_l]

I am currently experimenting (OK, ok, playing) with one of these CMOS, sense-up board cameras.

Briefly it's a video camera that has in-built "stacking" up to x30 which increases its sensitivity quite a lot. I find that with a 6mm focal length lens, it is equivalent to a dark-adapted 59 year-old eyeball <ahem>. This feeds into a USB video grabber and then to a computer screen at 720x566 resolution. You can also connect it directly to a monitor that has a PAL-in port.

The camera has this thing called AHD (analog high definition) which requires a completely different monitor to view its HD view. Luckily the inbuilt control panel allows you to change this to normal PAL format video. Although this does lose resolution.

 

But for only €20, my curiousity got the better of me.

[AstroAdam]

I use a Lodestar (original, not X2, though both are fine) together with Starlight Live (formerly Lodestar Live), a fantastic free bit of software that enables you to view objects (yes - including deep sky) more or less live on screen (5-30s exposures are good). 

It auto stacks, so it cleans up the image a bit as you leave it capturing too.  See below for a few examples of live captures I've taken recently - as see on-screen during capture.  These are taken wth a tiny little 70ED refractor.  You don't need anything big!

[AstroAdam]

These are unguided exposures on a Minitower II alt-az mount by the way.  It handles field de-rotation too, where field rotation due to the Alt-Az mount is removed automatically.  Marvellous!  These are all 30s exposures (stacked).

[calli]

1 hour ago, pete_l said:

I am currently experimenting (OK, ok, playing) with one of these CMOS, sense-up board cameras.

...

But for only €20, my curiousity got the better of me.

Sounds interesting. Did you already try on a scope?

And is there any (maybe even cheap) setup to get the HD image to a computer?

Carsten

[Hertford Stargazer]

Thanks everyone, what can be achieved surpassed my expectation by far, I've got some thinking to do.

AstroAdam, those images are amazing for such short exposer times, it's got me rethinking my aversion to astro photography 

Perhaps my biggest hurdle will be getting approval for the outlay from er indoors. Spending money on big scopes is easily passed as she sees it as worthwhile and something of value due to the size and weight but money on something small and light (like eyepieces and cameras) always gets a disapproving frown.