RASC Hamilton telescope camera at observatory?

[Ed Mizzi]

I must agree with Roger. The satisfaction is gained from seeing it by "yourself" through an eyepiece and the wait in line is well worth it. Besides, looking through a scope is only a small part of the Astronomy Badge requirements...The Scouts also have to fulfill several other duites and we'll test them on site. Then the leader has nothing else to do and that badge is done! If the group wanted to return for another observing session, etc., so be it. And even if you have a Mallincan, kids of that age are still not going to stare at it for great lengths of time. If anything, for that $2000 Gary estimated, we could purchase 2 or 3, eight or ten inch Dobs, even with Push-to pads. I just bought an 8", Push-to Orion for $600, incl. tax.

Ed


On 2012-06-20, at 2:44 PM, Roger Hill wrote:

> 
> A good portion of the magic of looking through a telescope is that it is YOU who is looking.
> 
> When you're looking at a galaxy, for instance, the photons falling on the back of your eyeball were emitted by billions of stars millions of years ago.  Looking at a tv screen does not have even close to the same emotional impact.  
> 
> Similarly, with Saturn.  I've done a lot of sidewalk astronomy, and I love the moment when someone sees Saturn for the first time...a perfect sharp ball of a planet with these impossible rings and orange Titan.  Seeing it on a monitor, well, you might as well show them Hubble images from the internet.
> 
> Video is good to give people an idea of what they will see.  You can point out the moons of Jupiter, for instance, or the names of craters, or the areas where men have walked.
> 
> But you must allow them to look for themselves.
> 
> Roger Hill
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: astronomers-bounces at hamiltonrasc.ca on behalf of Shawn Preston
> Sent: Wed 20/06/2012 1:59 PM
> To: astronomers at hamiltonrasc.ca
> Subject: Re: RASC Hamilton telescope camera at observatory?
> 
> As someone who uses a video camera for part of his astrophotography endeavors, I'll chime in here. 
> 
> To view the brighter objects like the sun, moon, mars, Jupiter and saturn, you can make due with a reasonably modest video camera. In fact, many just used modified webcams. The challenge though is that due to atmospheric turbulence, they image at the eyepiece is often better than that at the monitor of the camera. To really see the plants well you need to capture video and process the frames in between the atmospheric turbulence... It can't really be done real-time. At being said, it's probably better to se
> e a blurry planet than no planet at all!
> 
> For deeper sky objects like nebulae and galaxies you need a much more advanced video camera that generally runs about $1500.  A few other odds and ends are needed to make it work well, but you can get good results in near real-time. 
> 
> Shawn 
> 
> Shawn Preston
> www.skyminer.ca
> 
> 
> On Jun 20, 2012, at 1:26 PM, "Andrew Bienhaus" <andrew at bienhaus.org> wrote:
> 
>> Hey guys,
>> Newbie here, on behalf of 1st Binbrook Scout Group. (a new member) ;-)
>> 
>> Our experience at the Conservation area, was a great one, and we look forward to a visit to the observatory.
>> 
>> But, one thing is evident, and that is that trying to get 30 kids past one eyepiece, is problematic. ;-)
>> 
>> I know there are cameras you can mount to eyepieces, and we do have an older data projector as well as monitors out the wazoo.
>> But what sort of expense and options are we talking about, to mount a digital feed onto the telescope?
>> 
>> and, is this something the club has ever considered raising funds to purchase for installation there?
>> 
>> thanks!
>> Andy
>> 1st Binbrook
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