Video Captures through the Telescope
Can the PC164C surveillance camera serve as an astronomical "electronic eyepiece"? This camera is relatively inexpensive, smaller than most of the eyepieces in your case, with a weight of 68 grams.
- 1/3" Monochrome High Performance Sony SuperHAD exView CCD Imager
- 250,920 Pixels
- 420 Lines Resolution
- 0.0003 lux Minimum Illumination
This is the camera with the C thread to 1.25" adapter from Adirondack Video Astronomy The black plug is 12V power input, the yellow is Video out to monitor.
The frame grab of a video frame is in no way a quality CCD image but will give an idea what this camera can see.
The Trapesium in M43 with the PC164C camera through an 8"f7 Dobsonian with Dob Driver II, frame grabbed with Snappy 4.0 and processed with Paintshop Pro 01/26/02 8PM EST
Saturn same equipment unprocessed. Here you can see the bloom that you will get from bright objects as they flood the pixels.
Top View looking at the CCD chip
Moon Processed but poor seeing makes it blurred
These tests merit further trials as an observing device. What will a globular cluster look like? can it see nebulosity? Will the clouds ever clear in Northern Virginia?
Build more stuff
Ed
Camera available from http://www.supercircuits.com