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M1 'Crab Nebula' - Atik ATK16, ED80 @ f/6, 7
x 7 minutes @ f/6
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LAST QUARTER
15cm Maksutov-Cassegrain @ f/10, mosaic of 6
images,
Astrovid 2000
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| Jupiter & Saturn recorded with Supercircuits'
PC33C color video surveillance camera head on a 25cm Newtonian @ f/30 --
each image is made up of 30 video frames stacked in Photo Shop. |
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REVIEW ARTICLE: "SURVEILLANCE
CAMERAS FOR VIDEO ASTRONOMY"
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| Planetary images with Supercircuits' low light
video surveillance camera head, the PC164C, which uses a very sensitive
Sony Super HAD EXview CCD video chip. The extreme sensitivity of
the camera, rated at 0.0003 lux, allows the use of larger image scale when
imaging the planets resulting in higher resolution images. A 25cm
Newtonian @ f/30 was used to image Saturn and a 15cm Maksutov-Cassegrain
at f/50 for Jupiter. |
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VIDEO CAPTURE ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY
| Video astronomy and video capture astrophotography
has only recently come into the main stream of amateur astronomy.
Like film, integrating CCD systems and, most recently, digital still, video
is yet another tool for the astrophotographer seeking to do high resolution
imaging. The strengths of video are numerous as are its shortcomings,
which is true of all of the imaging techniques. In short, video is
not "the" end-all imaging method, but rather a very powerful and rather
specialized tool for recording and capturing images of the Sun, Moon,
Planets and Deep Sky objects. Its particular strength is in its ability
to record events such as lunar and planetary occultations (see Saturn occultation
below), transits, eclipses, solar prominences and flares along with meteors
and satellites. Because video captures up to 30 frames per second,
recordings made during the poorest of seeing conditions will often yield
reasonably sharp and clear intermittent individual frames (again, as with
the Saturn images below). Film and integrating CCD, even digital
still used in poor seeing conditions generally will not yield superior
results, or for that matter, even comparable quality images to those captured
video or webcam equipment. |
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Saturn reappearing from behind the moon on
September 10, 2001
15cm Maksutov-Cassegrain @ f/20 Astrovid
2000
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| As seeing conditions at my suburban home in Livermore,
California are always turbulent I have adopted the use of video/webcam
for my astrophotography. From the very first images made back in
1999, I was producing results several orders of magnitude better than the
best film photos I had ever taken of the moon and planets through a scope.
All of the images on this web site were made from
video or webcam with various cameras as noted using an ED80mm APO,
12cm f/5 refractor, 25cm f/6 Newtonian or 15cm f/10 Maksutov-Cassegrain.
Prime focus, Barlow projection or eyepiece projection were utilized to
vary image scale (magnification). Video recorded to a Hi8 camcorder
or directly to the computer with various hardware/software as noted.
Image processing with RegiStax and Adobe Photo Shop. All imaging
done from my home. |
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