This puzzles me.

[Peter Drew]

If I use a video camera with a 1/3" chip on a 16"SCT, I can see detail, better and more easily, say on Jupiter, than I can with the eyepiece. It's often reported that a chip this size equates to an eyepiece of around 7mm, if so, this would suggest 570x on a 4000mm FL, you can guess what this would look like with a 7mm eyepiece, I rarely use above 250x. Some of my best results have been with a Canon mini dv which the manual seems to say has a 1/6" chip, not only do I also incorporate a 18mm projection eyepiece, but the majority of the 10x optical zoom. The resulting image almost fills the screen yet retains worthwhile detail and image quality, no idea what sort of magnification that represents. I'm not primarily an imager and wonder whether this is a true telescope image or a re-image due to the secondary imaging device. .

[brianb]

You need to learn to use an eyepiece ... it takes a couple of years but the training is worthwhile, at least doubling the effective aperture of the scope in terms of what you can see, especially when the seeing is poor.

Magnification simply doesn't matter.

BTW I always see more at the eyepiece than I record in single frames of my videos. The single frames are noisy ... when replayed at "live" speed, persistence of vision smooths this out & gives an impression similar to the image that comes out of stacking, but before wavelet sharpening is applied.

[Peter Drew]

I've been using eyepieces for over 50 years but video for less than 10, maybe my eyesight is now past its best!

[Rob_Jn]

Hello Peter

I guess it could be due to contrast in the video image?

Are you using a filter, an IR block maybe?

I'm a newcomer on here, usually over on "that other forum"!

Rob.

[Peter Drew]

Hello Rob, welcome to the "best" forum. . I don't use any filters when videoing, just eyepiece projection. On reflection, I probably should have left out my subjective comment about better images than when using a eyepiece although others, younger and better observers than myself, have also noticed this. My main interest was why a much higher magnification, with good results, in real time, was possible with the camcorder than with an eyepiece.

[davew]

Could it be pixel size / pitch and not straight out mag ? Other wise don't know.

Dave