Video Camera Astronomy and the Phil Dyer Colour Camera Roger Samworth

Requirements Deep sky & planetary Portable Simple to use No need for accurate tracking – I only have an alt-az “Go To”, not an equatorial Quick to produce results – =“Instant gratification!”

Integrating Video Cameras 2 different methods – Long exposures ( = “on chip” integration”) – Off-chip integration (integrating video cameras) PD is an integrating colour video camera Can also do off-chip integration with Registax or similar. Found best results so far using internal camera stacking plus Registax

The PD Colour Camera

Stills mode Takes a series of exposures at 1/50 th second Internally stacks and processes up to 1024 of these 1/50 th second frames. – Mount only has to track well (if at all) for 20 seconds. Take as many of these 20 second frames as you like and stack them in Registax, or something similar – I usually take around 10, giving a total exposure of 200 seconds or so.

Movie mode Record the individual frames as an.avi movie. – Brighter objects such as the moon or planets. Use Registax to stack them. Faster shutter speeds possible to keep distortion from atmospheric wobble down. – Generally, I use around 3000 frames.

The Question of Contrast With images in electronic form, all sorts of image processing options are available. For deep sky, improve the contrast of the images, usually non-linearly, by using a “gamma” function or similar. – I use GIMP 2 to process my images and in that software it is badged “curves”. See “Imaging Deep Sky Objects with the Phil Dyer Colour Video Camera” on the web-site.

The Question of Contrast You can also “sharpen” images with dramatic effect on planetary images. Note none of these processes adds anything to the image that was not there originally, they simply emphasise or suppress features.

Image Examples

The Window-Sill Through Double Glazing (WSTDG) Observatory Unconventional approaches now possible. Our house faces south-ish over a large garden. – So, mounting a small telescope on the window-sill of the spare bedroom enables observation in comfort at all times of the night. Look through the glass – With open window, air currents ruin the seeing. The first go was with a 76mm reflector.

The Window-Sill Through Double Glazing (WSTDG) Observatory

WSTDG Examples

Not got polar alignment quite right - tricky from inside!

Leo Triplet from Outside

Leo Triplet “Inspiration!”

Conclusion So, in conclusion, the PD camera is a great low-cost bit of kit enabling all sorts of imaging to be done very easily – and quickly. Not professional quality, but huge fun!