RunCam Night Eagle Astro Cam - quick review

[lukebl]

Hi folks,

This is meant as a quick preliminary review of the RunCam Night Eagle Astro video camera, which I've acquired from the USA courtesy of Furrysocks2, with the intention of using it for asteroidal occultation measurements.

It was originally developed for night time drone flying, and having a very sensitive sensor someone from the astronomy field noticed and the result is this slightly modified version. IOTA (International Occultation Timing Association) are suggesting that it can be used for occultations. It captures at a rate of 25 fps. The sensor is only 720 x 576 pixels, so you won't get high-quality images, but it's good for real live viewing. I used it with my 250mm f/4.7 Newtonian.

I also bought a GPS Video time inserter for accurate occultation measurements. Here's some preliminary results. Being June, it doesn't get really dark and I don't like staying up late, but I made an exception yesterday!

Firstly, it's absolutely TINY. Like a toy from a Christmas Cracker. Here it is next to Lego Chewbacca.

I tried it on M57, The Ring Nebula. This is an animated GIF to show roughly what the live view looks like. When you consider these are just 1/25 second exposures from what looks like a cracker toy, it's quite remarkable. The brighter star on the left-hand side is about 10th magnitude, and stars down to 14th magnitude are also clearly visible when you stretch the image. I have an occultation of a 10th magnitude star next week, so this looks promising.

This is a stack of 200 x 1/25 sec frames in Registax. OK, it's not going to win any prizes, but the depth is good, and the central star is visible.

This is a single frame of M13

And a stack of 200 frames. Not so good as a single frame.

So, a potentially interesting and affordable piece of kit (c £100 including shipping and taxes) for certain aspects of our hobby.

[furrysocks2]

That's really cool! I still haven't powered mine up.

Are you using a focal reducer in this configuration? Assuming those are with frame integration turned off?

[Jkulin]

I'm interested in this and at £39.95 it's good value: -

https://www.hobbyrc.co.uk/runcam-eagle-2-pro?gclid=Cj0KCQjwjN7YBRCOARIsAFCb936-eJgAtsGLuIy1VUDpNIOEchSOg_mmuRjc23O26sH-7y1GU5cAlGkaAgO8EALw_wcB

[furrysocks2]

2 hours ago, Jkulin said:

I'm interested in this and at £39.95 it's good value: -

https://www.hobbyrc.co.uk/runcam-eagle-2-pro?gclid=Cj0KCQjwjN7YBRCOARIsAFCb936-eJgAtsGLuIy1VUDpNIOEchSOg_mmuRjc23O26sH-7y1GU5cAlGkaAgO8EALw_wcB

Just be sure that you know it's not the same camera... the Night Eagle 2 Pro, and specifically the IOTA's Astro version is significantly more sensitive and has additional features (frame integration and manual AGC limit).

[lukebl]

3 hours ago, furrysocks2 said:

That's really cool! I still haven't powered mine up.

Are you using a focal reducer in this configuration? Assuming those are with frame integration turned off?

No focal reducer. Not really needed as it's a Newt, not a Cass.

I'm not sure of the status of the frame integration. Need a bit more practice.

[furrysocks2]

2 hours ago, lukebl said:

No focal reducer. Not really needed as it's a Newt, not a Cass.

I'm not sure of the status of the frame integration. Need a bit more practice.

Still a relatively long focal length at @1175mm? I tried to plate solve a couple of your images above to get an angular field of view but it failed.

Still, for a live view, they look quite deep to me!

 

Edit: solved...

Size:	15.7 x 12.7 arcmin
Radius:	0.168 deg
Pixel scale:	1.3 arcsec/pixel

[lukebl]

2 hours ago, furrysocks2 said:

Edit: solved...

Size:	15.7 x 12.7 arcmin
Radius:	0.168 deg
Pixel scale:	1.3 arcsec/pixel

If that was one of the stacked images, I rescaled it in Registax by 200%. So the size in arcmin will be the same, but the Pixel Scale will be double.