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Post by curtisca17 on Dec 28, 2019 19:41:27 GMT
This is my first post here. I hope to reach a group of like-minded amateur astronomers from outside the US. I got into EAA when I bought my first video camera from Mallincam in 2010 and have enjoyed it ever since. I also have watched this pursuit change over the nearly 10 years now that I have been a part of it. And I have tried to share what we do with others through a number of talks given to local astronomy clubs, outreach events, an article in the March issue of Sky & Telescope, postings and through my website. Around 2014 I began to be curious about the development of video astronomy for deep sky viewing in real time and started researching the topic. Well, after more than 5 years I have finally assembled the information I have been able to collect into an article on my website which I would like to share. I tried my best to be complete and verify information from multiple sources. I will tell you that there is a fair amount of misinformation out there and I tried to make sure that I do not repeat it. I used every resource I could get my hands on to fill in as much of the details of the decades long journey that is analog video astronomy of the deep sky. My summary is based on material I have found in a number of books including Steve Massey's two books on video astronomy, Antony Cooke's book "Visual Astronomy Under Dark Skies", Robert Reeves "Introduction to Webcam Astronomy", along with dozens of articles in Sky and Telescope, Astronomy Magazine, Sky News and more over the past 30 years. It also includes a review of thousands of early posts on the Yahoo Groups: "Video Astronomy", "Quickcam and Unconventional Imaging Astronomy Group",and "Mallincam," along with hundreds of posts on the CN EAA forum and the Stargazers Lounge forum to help me pin down details about each camera along with dates and features. To dig still deeper I also exchanged emails with a number of individuals on the CN forum and others including Rock Mallin, Jack Heurkamp and Jim Ferreira who had first hand knowledge of the early days that I did not. Multiple attempts to reach out to Steve Massey were unsuccessful, hence I could not pin down more details on the GSTAR camera series. To cross check information I also reviewed hundreds of on line web sites and postings by individuals which included camera specifics and pictures. I also bought several vintage cameras to see for myself and to begin to build a collection which spans the history of this hobby and save that history from oblivion. I am still looking for any and all such vintage cameras (Mintron, Watec, Supercircuits, Stellacam, Mallincam, GSTAR, Polaris, ITE, Orion etc.) to add to this collection, but it has reached the point that I cannot justify the expense and am hoping to find individuals who have some of these cameras just collecting dust and are willing to donate these to help preserve history. Maybe one day I can get S&T do publish an article on this history. So I hope I have done justice to our little branch of the astronomy hobby and those of you who are not typically on some of the other video astronomy forums can help provide any additional input to the history I have written, as well as, share you own personal experiences. It is necessarily long as it spans nearly 3 decades. I would appreciate feedback where I am missing detailed information and anywhere that I may have not gotten things exactly right. Here is the link: www.californiaskys.com/blogMerry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all Curtis
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Post by davy on Dec 29, 2019 0:25:47 GMT
This is my first post here. I hope to reach a group of like-minded amateur astronomers from outside the US. I got into EAA when I bought my first video camera from Mallincam in 2010 and have enjoyed it ever since. I also have watched this pursuit change over the nearly 10 years now that I have been a part of it. And I have tried to share what we do with others through a number of talks given to local astronomy clubs, outreach events, an article in the March issue of Sky & Telescope, postings and through my website. Around 2014 I began to be curious about the development of video astronomy for deep sky viewing in real time and started researching the topic. Well, after more than 5 years I have finally assembled the information I have been able to collect into an article on my website which I would like to share. I tried my best to be complete and verify information from multiple sources. I will tell you that there is a fair amount of misinformation out there and I tried to make sure that I do not repeat it. I used every resource I could get my hands on to fill in as much of the details of the decades long journey that is analog video astronomy of the deep sky. My summary is based on material I have found in a number of books including Steve Massey's two books on video astronomy, Antony Cooke's book "Visual Astronomy Under Dark Skies", Robert Reeves "Introduction to Webcam Astronomy", along with dozens of articles in Sky and Telescope, Astronomy Magazine, Sky News and more over the past 30 years. It also includes a review of thousands of early posts on the Yahoo Groups: "Video Astronomy", "Quickcam and Unconventional Imaging Astronomy Group",and "Mallincam," along with hundreds of posts on the CN EAA forum and the Stargazers Lounge forum to help me pin down details about each camera along with dates and features. To dig still deeper I also exchanged emails with a number of individuals on the CN forum and others including Rock Mallin, Jack Heurkamp and Jim Ferreira who had first hand knowledge of the early days that I did not. Multiple attempts to reach out to Steve Massey were unsuccessful, hence I could not pin down more details on the GSTAR camera series. To cross check information I also reviewed hundreds of on line web sites and postings by individuals which included camera specifics and pictures. I also bought several vintage cameras to see for myself and to begin to build a collection which spans the history of this hobby and save that history from oblivion. I am still looking for any and all such vintage cameras (Mintron, Watec, Supercircuits, Stellacam, Mallincam, GSTAR, Polaris, ITE, Orion etc.) to add to this collection, but it has reached the point that I cannot justify the expense and am hoping to find individuals who have some of these cameras just collecting dust and are willing to donate these to help preserve history. Maybe one day I can get S&T do publish an article on this history. So I hope I have done justice to our little branch of the astronomy hobby and those of you who are not typically on some of the other video astronomy forums can help provide any additional input to the history I have written, as well as, share you own personal experiences. It is necessarily long as it spans nearly 3 decades. I would appreciate feedback where I am missing detailed information and anywhere that I may have not gotten things exactly right. Here is the link: www.californiaskys.com/blogMerry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all Curtis welcome to the group cutis,, I have seen your post on cloudy nights forum and read your article, good read,, well researched,, I got into video astronomy back in 2011 and I and Ken started VAF with others back in 2013...good old days with the Samsung, watec and Phil dyer cameras I started with and still have lol.. I believe you already know Ken,, make yourself at home,, we do things a bit differently than CN and sgl... Very more relaxed lol
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Post by davy on Dec 29, 2019 0:35:17 GMT
One guy who has a wealth of knowledge on video astronomy is,, Shevill Mathers Southern Cross Observatory Tasmania 42 South Probably been doing video astronomy before I was born in 1968,, probably one of the pioneer guys in video astronomy.. Not been on in a while,, posts on the zwo group recently.. He could give you heaps of knowledge shevillm@gmail.com
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Post by davy on Dec 29, 2019 0:53:48 GMT
Both myself and Ken done a lot of work on the Samsung scb cameras.. Lot of converting,, from removing ir filter to peltier cooling,, never got it to the way I wanted on the scb200 but I had four fans cooling mine and it kept it to ambient temperature and stopped it dropping frames back in the day when sharpcap was a doddle to use lol. Few of our members went down the ln300 route,, adding fans ect and removing rear end to make a tethered remote,, and burnt out a few,, as you know they went into short supply pretty quick. I went down the road of huvricon or Phil dyer cam route instead.. I originally started with the Philips webcam mine was the later version flashed to earlier spc900 spec.. Phew lot of tech since then.
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Post by howie1 on Dec 29, 2019 1:32:42 GMT
Hi Curtis ... Congrats on an excellent article. Some additions / insertions for your consideration and any wordsmithing ... Insert in the Section you entitled "The Digital Revolution" ... "In parallel with the CMOS sensor developments of ever-increasing pixel count and low-light performance, as well in parallel with the software devlopments allowing stacking and other editing functions, DSLR's have also had their following in Camera Assisted Observing. This commenced with folk using the typical DSLR's "Liveview" LCD screen to observe the Moon. Liveviews ability to magnify 5 times and 10 times digitally allowed the use of even entry level "kit" lens which came with those cameras, to see detailed close up features on the Moon at high magnification in real-time. However, the faint Deep Space Objects were not possible to "observe" using that LiveView. Having said that, the Sony A7S camera has terrific low light sensitivity and using that in true high-frames per second video mode, one can see many of the bright nebula's in real-time using that camera in their telescopes. The bright star clusters are easily seen in realtime with the A7S. Also, software such as Astro Toaster was created to perform similar functions to the previously mentioned Miloslick, SharpCap, etc. Thus there are folk who today use their DSLR's for their normal daytime family and travel images, and then at night use the same camera inserted into their telescopes via a cheap adapter, and use AstroToaster in order to stack frames and stretch out the faint details of DSO's to make them visible. Canon did offer an astro-modded DSLR which had the IR filter removed in the factory, to allow more Hydrogen Alpha light through to the sensor in order to be dedicated as an astronomical imaging system. There are after-market companies who not only remove the IR filter, but also add coolers to DSLR's in order to use them for both Astrophotography as well as Camera Assisted Observing. " Curtis you might also want a new section entitled ... "The Future" "Well earlier I explained how EAA is perhaps not quite the right terminology to decribe observations of astronomical objects in near real-time, and how I thought the term Camera Assisted Observation was more what we do ... well there is a group now using military spec night vision for live observations. This group are adapting the night vision equipment, usually shortened to the acronmym NV, in order to mount NV onto everything from hand held bird-watching scopes, to the normal high-power telescopes and mounts associated with normal astronomy. The small hand held bird-scopes allow practitioners of NV to on a whim, wander out into their backyards and relax in a reclining chair and simply look up with their equipment and scan across the sky in order to literally 'see' faint objects in real-time. So perhaps the term Camera Assisted Observing is already obsolete! Perhaps it should be something like "Electronic Device Observing". Only time will tell. All of these technologies used for Camera Assisted Observing may well become the saving Grace for amateur AstroPhotography, as even now there are many images ruined by existing satellite trails streaking through the sky as the camera's take long exposures. Unfortunately, the number of satellites is set to increase ten-fold as meg-wealthy individuals such as Elon Musk and other huge companies such as Amazon get into the process of launching tens of thousands of satelites to provide cheap (?) internet. In other words, as the skies become very "polluted" by tens of thousands of extra satellites thus making exposures in excess of 3 minutes impossible (3+ minutes typically used for AstroPhotography), the short exposures and specialised techniques of Camara Assisted Observing may become the 'norm' for taking photo's of the night sky objects. " Etc, etc ... I'll let you finish this up. Oh and maybe add Howie Levine as one who has contributed heaps to EAA having developed AstroToaster which many of us DSLR nutters use (myself almost exclusively!) BTW I share the same Christian name but am not THE Howie Levine creator of AT. Cheers
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Post by curtisca17 on Dec 29, 2019 3:51:28 GMT
One guy who has a wealth of knowledge on video astronomy is,, Shevill Mathers Southern Cross Observatory Tasmania 42 South Probably been doing video astronomy before I was born in 1968,, probably one of the pioneer guys in video astronomy.. Not been on in a while,, posts on the zwo group recently.. He could give you heaps of knowledge shevillm@gmail.com Davy, Thanks for the welcome. Yes I do know Ken and he has also been helpful with many things over the years, including some history - including the Gil Miles image. And I definitely have seen Shevill's web site and work with cameras over the many years. In fact Rock Mallin suggested I put him in my "Hall of Fame". I almost did. Also, thanks for recounting some of your own history. This is what I hope others will do. I too had the opportunity to try out an SCB2000 from Samsung which I borrowed from a friend. Had to remove the IR filter but it is, as I mention in the article, fairly easy. I still own an LNtech 300 which I modified like Rock's Micro to accept Rock's computer control cable to use a SW emulator for the buttons for remote control by PC. It is incredible how this hobby has evolved. Best Regards, Curtis
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Post by curtisca17 on Dec 29, 2019 3:58:54 GMT
Hi Curtis ... Congrats on an excellent article. Some additions / insertions for your consideration and any wordsmithing ... Insert in the Section you entitled "The Digital Revolution" ... "In parallel with the CMOS sensor developments of ever-increasing pixel count and low-light performance, as well in parallel with the software devlopments allowing stacking and other editing functions, DSLR's have also had their following in Camera Assisted Observing. This commenced with folk using the typical DSLR's "Liveview" LCD screen to observe the Moon. Liveviews ability to magnify 5 times and 10 times digitally allowed the use of even entry level "kit" lens which came with those cameras, to see detailed close up features on the Moon at high magnification in real-time. However, the faint Deep Space Objects were not possible to "observe" using that LiveView. Having said that, the Sony A7S camera has terrific low light sensitivity and using that in true high-frames per second video mode, one can see many of the bright nebula's in real-time using that camera in their telescopes. The bright star clusters are easily seen in realtime with the A7S. Also, software such as Astro Toaster was created to perform similar functions to the previously mentioned Miloslick, SharpCap, etc. Thus there are folk who today use their DSLR's for their normal daytime family and travel images, and then at night use the same camera inserted into their telescopes via a cheap adapter, and use AstroToaster in order to stack frames and stretch out the faint details of DSO's to make them visible. Canon did offer an astro-modded DSLR which had the IR filter removed in the factory, to allow more Hydrogen Alpha light through to the sensor in order to be dedicated as an astronomical imaging system. There are after-market companies who not only remove the IR filter, but also add coolers to DSLR's in order to use them for both Astrophotography as well as Camera Assisted Observing. " Curtis you might also want a new section entitled ... "The Future" "Well earlier I explained how EAA is perhaps not quite the right terminology to decribe observations of astronomical objects in near real-time, and how I thought the term Camera Assisted Observation was more what we do ... well there is a group now using military spec night vision for live observations. This group are adapting the night vision equipment, usually shortened to the acronmym NV, in order to mount NV onto everything from hand held bird-watching scopes, to the normal high-power telescopes and mounts associated with normal astronomy. The small hand held bird-scopes allow practitioners of NV to on a whim, wander out into their backyards and relax in a reclining chair and simply look up with their equipment and scan across the sky in order to literally 'see' faint objects in real-time. So perhaps the term Camera Assisted Observing is already obsolete! Perhaps it should be something like "Electronic Device Observing". Only time will tell. All of these technologies used for Camera Assisted Observing may well become the saving Grace for amateur AstroPhotography, as even now there are many images ruined by existing satellite trails streaking through the sky as the camera's take long exposures. Unfortunately, the number of satellites is set to increase ten-fold as meg-wealthy individuals such as Elon Musk and other huge companies such as Amazon get into the process of launching tens of thousands of satelites to provide cheap (?) internet. In other words, as the skies become very "polluted" by tens of thousands of extra satellites thus making exposures in excess of 3 minutes impossible (3+ minutes typically used for AstroPhotography), the short exposures and specialised techniques of Camara Assisted Observing may become the 'norm' for taking photo's of the night sky objects. " Etc, etc ... I'll let you finish this up. Oh and maybe add Howie Levine as one who has contributed heaps to EAA having developed AstroToaster which many of us DSLR nutters use (myself almost exclusively!) BTW I share the same Christian name but am not THE Howie Levine creator of AT. Cheers Howie, You are spot on about using the live view of DSLRs and another form of Camera Assisted Viewing and a relatively recent addition to the growing list of equipment options. While I have not used AstroToaster I know many do. I'll leave the NV for someone else to document. Thnaks for your inputs and kind comments. Best Regards, Curtis
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2019 6:33:42 GMT
Welcome Curtis I have been following your articles. Job well done. Cheers Paul
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Post by Dragon Man on Dec 29, 2019 14:23:46 GMT
Well done Curtis. The blog is excellent. Glad to have helped in my small ways.
And welcome to our group here.
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Post by curtisca17 on Dec 31, 2019 16:44:39 GMT
Ken - thanks for you kind comments.
All - I was hoping that someone down there in Australia/New Zealand would be able to help me fill in some of the details on the GSTAR history. For instance, when were each of the GSTAR cameras (GSTAR Ex, GSTAR EX Colour, GSTAR EX 2) introduced and which Mintron's were each actually based upon. Anything else about the GSTAR history would be helpful. Search as I did across the internet, I could not pin down these details and, as I said, I could not get in contact with Steve Massey although I tried several different ways.
As I write this it is already New Year down there so hope you all have a Happy Year and get those fires out! No stranger to those here in CA.
Best Regards, Curtis
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