Dob mob eyepieces ??

[Stu]

2 hours ago, Louis D said:

Correct.  That's why a lot of folks in the states who already have APOs and big dobs are moving on to image intensified astronomy with the latest night vision tubes.  They can make faint nebula look like monochromatic photographs in real time.

It's a very interesting aspect of astronomy. My understanding is that the technology is difficult to access outside the US due to export restrictions which is a shame.

[Beulah]

3 hours ago, Louis D said:

Correct.  That's why a lot of folks in the states who already have APOs and big dobs are moving on to image intensified astronomy with the latest night vision tubes.  They can make faint nebula look like monochromatic photographs in real time.

 

38 minutes ago, Stu said:

It's a very interesting aspect of astronomy. My understanding is that the technology is difficult to access outside the US due to export restrictions which is a shame.

Incredible, really interesting thread on CN. Probably won't be long until someone manufactures this specifically for Astro and eventually become cheap enough for us mortals. Could spell the end for unwieldy monster dobs and the rest. Love to try out this tech. .

 

[Stu]

30 minutes ago, Beulah said:

Probably won't be long until someone manufactures this specifically for Astro

They already do Sam....

http://nightvisionastronomy.com/

[John]

The Astronomy Magazine review of the device is interesting. I find myself wondering if it will amplify light pollution and local light sources to an extent that masks the amplified starlight

 

[Louis D]

5 hours ago, John said:

The Astronomy Magazine review of the device is interesting. I find myself wondering if it will amplify light pollution and local light sources to an extent that masks the amplified starlight

 

As I understand it, you generally put narrow band filters over them to reject unwanted frequencies.  The nice part is, far-red hydrogen alpha would be presented as a frequency more easily visible to the human eye.

I don't know all the details, but I looked through one held up to an eyepiece showing M8 at a star party.  Only the open cluster was visible naked eye due to light pollution.  With the intensifier tube, the Lagoon Nebula was as plain as day.

[Stu]

That's right Louis. @PeterW has an image intensifier and with a narrowband filter we clearly saw the North America Nebula from our local site which is only mag 19.1 ish.

[PeterW]

Ah the topic has moved from one Green ep (ethos) to another (intensifier). The BIPH was actually not brilliant and only 2 batches were ever made. The current CN IIE activity mainly  use commercially available NV monoculars and cheap adapters to either fast camera lenses or 1.25/2" ep adapters. As you say put a narrow h-alpha filter on and boom... out come the nebulae. Mixed bag on galaxies, resolves globs in a small scope (in my opinion it ruins the view when used in big dobs). Quite fun to put a long pass filter on and just look at all the stars in the sky (very good general LP filter), there is scintillation in he image and a green background and they are still seeing affected (transparency needed). Not cheap, but not too costly when compared to many ep cases we see... I only need ONE ep. (Works best with the fastest scope you can couple it to).

I doubt we'll see anything commercial outside the US unless the US change out export status. Look on hunting forums secondhand pages for whatever "gen3" stuff you can find, then check if the housing can be connected to a scope (CN very knowledgable). It's annoying as you know the Americans have got better stuff (filmless, white phosphor, gain control....), but I am not too unhappy with what I have seen with it.

Also useful for meteors, covert navigation of starparties and badger watching.

 

PEterW

 

PS @Louis Dwhich starparty?

[Louis D]

5 hours ago, PeterW said:

PS @Louis Dwhich starparty?

It was at an outreach party in the Austin area.  Pretty informal.  The intensifier helped to show the general public nebula that were otherwise invisible given our urban location.

[Louis D]

5 hours ago, PeterW said:

It's annoying as you know the Americans have got better stuff (filmless, white phosphor, gain control....)

There's nothing stopping other countries from developing their own versions.  I'm surprised Russia and China aren't selling their own government subsidized versions to flood the market to try to put the Americans out of business.  First steel and cement, then solar power, why not night vision next?

[PeterW]

Austin... home to 2 of the NV evangelists, not surprising! Russian stuff isn't well thought of, not heard of any Chinese stuff, sure it's not too bad. I did see a post somewhere showing that most nations have "similar stuff" mainly made under some form of license, just no one is selling to civilians. EU stuff (photonis) is getting close (Astro needs high gain, which the previous photo is stuff didn't quite match), but is very costly. The technology is moving to longer wavelghts and adding in thermal as well to give more ID capability. The hunting crowd seem to have moved over to low light cameras and high power LEDs as it's cheaper, though they're now moving into thermal... even more costly (but no use for Astro).

PEterW