Digisccoping Stupid Idea?

[TopHouse]

is this a totally stupid idea or has anyone ever tried putting a camcorder onto a digiscoping mount, then loading it into video software and grabbing stills, or even just short lengths of video and youtubing them? I know you can do it with a webcam but is this idea too wacky?

[brianb]

Not a totally stupid idea, but the light loss in the eyepiece & camera lens might be a bit much. I don't know how light sensitive consumer camcorders are, not very is my guess. For most astro work you need some means of overriding the camera's automatic focus & auto exposure if you're going to get reasonable images using afocal imaging i.e. digiscope attachment - this applies to still cameras too.

[Peter Drew]

Not stupid, I hope, as I've been using a Canon MVimc mini DV camcorder for this purpose for planetary imaging. I use the afocal method by attaching a 15mm Plossl eyepiece to the camcorder via a Scopetronix low profile adaptor. The resulting raw images are comparable to webcam images and can be viewed in real time in full colour at a large image scale. Not as good as expertly processed images from other cameras, but for instant satisfying results, hard to beat. Plenty of sensitivity for sun, moon and planets but forget stellar objects.