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I want to try video astronomy.


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I have a Minitron mono video camera and would like to try to use it for video astronomy,observing with a monitor.

I have an eight inch Orion Optics UK VX Newtonian which I have been using with a Altair Sabre mount.

I have had driven and goto mounts in the past, but just enjoyed the simplicity of star hopping. But I believe that you would need a driven mount to do video astronomy, (it may aswell be a goto).

The telescope weighs seven Kgs.

What advice would benefit me?

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I am afraid cannot offer any advice on using the Minitron as I have only used a CCD for video/EAA but can have a stab at the non-camera aspects. Not sure how much knowledge you have so i'll assume you have very little - hope you don't mind. :wink: People usually try and get the scope to F5 or faster for video/EAA in order for the image to appear as quickly as possible and to get most 'near real time experience' possible. What is the F ratio of your scope? You may benefit from a reducer depending on whether you want to look at faint galaxies or brighter clusters and globs. As far as mount goes you do not need an equatorial and can get good results with an Altaz, but would definitely recommend goto. I imagine the 8" is pretty long and heavy (depending on the focal length) so would need a substantial mount, I reckon an AZ-EQ6 class mount would be needed, but it's not as critical for video/EAA as for imaging. I have found aligning the mount at the start of the session to be a pain when the camera is attached. Options are a flip mirror with eyepiece (means you must be at the scope) an electronic finder attached to a monitor/PC (that's what I use, allows remote aligning), Starsense (that's what I want!) or platesolving using the images captured from the camera (not sure how this works with a video camera). Hope that helps. 

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Hi Mr Martian,  the camera is probably a 1/3rd sensor, and analogue, so you have a few options on how to attach it to a monitor/ TV and to a laptop/pc.

Myself personally use a good coaxial cable with bnc connections and bnc to RCA adapter to plug into a usb video grabber to control the camera via sharpcap.

I found that I was getting phase lines on the image due to RCA cables.

Most scopes can be used for video astronomy, but it really depends on what you wish to observe,,  

Slow f ratio scopes good for planetary ,most folk will add a focal reducer to help get a wider field of view.

Most will point you in the direction of a faster scopes,and a lot use scopes like the Skywatcher ed80,, I personally have one and have the matched 0.85 focal reducer/ flatner to give a wider field of view and speeds up the f ratio slightly.

Mount wise , tracking is a must,, goto is nicer ?, alt az is ok but I personally would recommend an eq mount , I started with an eq3 pro and it's ok but you don't half notice a difference using a heq5 pro.

Video is more forgiving than astrophotography but is still a steep learning curve with the new cameras and software available now.

I bought a zwo asi 178 MC this week from Flo and using sharpcap pro version and I can see a massive improvement on the camera's I have been using,

Samsung scb 2000 , modified

Phil dyer

Qhy 5liic

Canon 600d. Backyard Eos/ astrotoaster

Looking forward to getting back to live video astronomy with my new camera.

 

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