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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2014 11:07:02 GMT
Hi All, Although I bought this camera several months ago; its only recently I'v managed to use it repeatedly (mostly weather reasons). In a nutshell I'm disappointed. At £200+ for a 1/3" CCD, I should have shopped around a bit more. The bundled software that came with it is freely available on the web, except for 'Opticstar View', and that is very basic. The C/CS to 1.25" telescope mount can cause a problem with vibration from the built in cooling fan. I overcame this by wrapping some installation tape around the 1.25" mount, ensuring a tight fit in the telescope. Perhaps I just got a bad batch, has any other Opticstar user come across problems ?? I have been thinking of upgrading, bigger chip for starters, enabling me to try some D/S photography. I think I'll give Opticstar a miss. Of course I'm a newb at astrophotography so it could be me, but I had better results with a cheap converted WebCam. Cheers Pete.
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Post by davy on May 22, 2014 12:14:21 GMT
Hi pete..pity the camera didn't work to your expectations. ..had a look at some info on it and your right an over glorified webcam by looks of it..most of the guy's use or have had a Samsung scb2000. .bang for buck its a good camera to start with. .davy
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Post by Dragon Man on May 22, 2014 12:32:36 GMT
www.amazon.com/Opticstar-PX-75C-Coolair-Camera-Resolution/dp/B00BIWJS2AWow, they are pretty expensive!!!!!! I also think they overstepped the use of the term 'Cooling' which would lead people to think it was Peltier cooled. It has a heat-sink attached to the back of the sensor with a fan which is something more than webcams have, and similar to what DSI's have but it really isn't what we expect when we read the term 'Cooling'. Pity it didn't work out for you Pete.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2014 19:06:38 GMT
In the past I have been caught by so called "Super-Cam" or whatever, only to find is uses a common chip that is used in low cost web cams. An Orion product I bought was nothing more than a dated web cam that I already had several years at a quarter the price. Some of my computers actually identify what the chip is when it loads the driver, which is how I found out by chance. I am very wary of any so called astro cam now because many are just in a different case with normally free software but called a different name. Been there, done that.
As an aside, always make sure what type of shutter any camera uses, a Rolling shutter or a Global shutter. In general a Rolling shutter is not suitable for astrophotography due to seeing caused image changes.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2014 19:31:57 GMT
In the past I have been caught by so called "Super-Cam" or whatever, only to find is uses a common chip that is used in low cost web cams. An Orion product I bought was nothing more than a dated web cam that I already had several years at a quarter the price. Some of my computers actually identify what the chip is when it loads the driver, which is how I found out by chance. I am very wary of any so called astro cam now because many are just in a different case with normally free software but called a different name. Been there, done that. As an aside, always make sure what type of shutter any camera uses, a Rolling shutter or a Global shutter. In general a Rolling shutter is not suitable for astrophotography due to seeing caused image changes. Hi, My camera has a Global shutter which I find confusing. I have heard of and know what an; electronic shutter, rolling shutter, mirror shutter and even a manual shutter, is; but Global shutter is new to me. What type is it Cheers Pete.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2014 6:08:20 GMT
Hi,
A Rolling shutter reads out line by line so if it is a moving object -and all astro images are due to a variety of seeing and other reasons, there will be some induced image blur. A Global shutter reads out in one go, just like taking a film shot, so no induced image blur. This is also a problem with interleaved video, which many cams are. For every frame there are two fields, and odd and an even and as they are read out you get jagged edges some blur with a moving object. In pro gear most video cams are progressive scan, the whole frame is read out in one hit, so a sharper image. In the early days progressive scan cameras were more expensive. Progressive scan can have issues as well but not a bother for us.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2014 13:09:27 GMT
Hi,
A Rolling shutter reads out line by line so if it is a moving object -and all astro images are due to a variety of seeing and other reasons, there will be some induced image blur. A Global shutter reads out in one go, just like taking a film shot, so no induced image blur. This is also a problem with interleaved video, which many cams are. For every frame there are two fields, and odd and an even and as they are read out you get jagged edges some blur with a moving object. In pro gear most video cams are progressive scan, the whole frame is read out in one hit, so a sharper image. In the early days progressive scan cameras were more expensive. Progressive scan can have issues as well but not a bother for us. Hi, Thanks for the detailed explanation, appreciated. Cheers Pete.
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