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These amazing cameras are at the centre of the quiet revolution in amateur astronomy.
These camera are up to 30 times more sensitive than the human eye, at a conservative estimate, and will turn your 8" scope into a 24" one, or a 10" scope into a massive 30".
Or, you could use the cameras as an alternative to an expensive 8 inch or 10 inch scope.
Attach a small 2" lens. You'll go just as "deepsky" as with an 8" or 10" scope, but with a very wide field of view, and you can watch on screen indoors out of the cold.
Your satisfaction is guaranteed. There's a 14 day no quibble money-back guarrantee, and the manufacturer's 12 month guarantee.
The cameras are small (50.5mm x 50.5mm x 115mm) and light (320g).
They fit to your telescope in place of the eyepiece
(1¼ inch eyepiece adapter available at low cost). View the output on an
ordinary TV screen.
Amazing Performance.
At a
conservative estimate, the Mintron 12V1-HAD, 12V1-EX and WDR cameras are respectively 3, 3.5 and 4 magnitudes more
sensitive than the human eye. You will be astonished at what can be seen with
these cameras.
Attached the camera to your 8" telescope, and you will see live on TV everthing that you could see through a 24"scope.
How do I use the Camera?
The cameras are so versatile, and can be used in so many different ways, that you will be spoiled for choice. Accessories are available at low cost so you can buy exactly what you need.
The simplest way is to connect any good quality "C" or "CS" mount lens direct to the camera. While stocks last, an excellent quality used F1.3 Computar lens is included with the camera Complete Kit bought from this web site. Coupled with the camera, the views it shows are unbelievable. It shows all stars down to magnitude 10 or 11 across an incredible 27 degree wide field. Serious astronomical work can could therefore be done with such a lens, in the areas of survey work, meteor showers, comet and novae hunting, artificial earth satellites, etc. You could make a real contribution and never own a telescope. And easier to set up, more portable, easy to mount (even a photographic tripod will do), and on those cold nights you can do your viewing indoors.
The cameras fit directly to standard photographic tripods. If you have SLR camera lenses (such as Nikon, or Canon FD or EOS), then these could also be most successfully used, but for this you would need a C mount adapter. These are available from this website.
You can also connect the cameras to your telescope. A "C to 1.25 eyepiece" adapter is available (see acccessories). Users with 8" SCT scopes (F10) will find my focal reducers a most useful accessory for deep sky work. For high magnification work, like planet imaging, the telescope must be sturdily mounted.
You will then, of course, need to connect the output from the camera to a suitable screen. The simplest way is to attach it to your TV set. Any TV set will do, as long as it has a AV input or a Scart socket. Better still, inlcude a VCR in the setup, and you can record your observations in real time. The camera has sockets for BNC and S-VHS cable connections for video output, and a 2.1mm DC socket for power input. A Cable/Power kit, which includes all cabling (short 3m and long 20m cabling), connectors, and power supply, is available as an accessory.
Connection to a PC or Laptop is also possible. You need a capture device for this, and an excellent one is available from this site. You will also need suitable software, such as
Astrovideo. You would then be able to capture your images to disk, to stack images to provide for long exposures, and digitally manipulate your images.
Exciting features
These
cameras use the latest Sony CCD imaging chips, and are the most
sensitive video systems available to amateur astronomers today.
The
cameras can be used on telescopes with drives not quite
accurate enough for conventional CCD imaging. Real time video, so
focussing and pointing the telescope/lens are very much simpler
tasks, compared with conventional CCD cameras.
The cameras are perfect for group viewing. View on screen – no waiting turns at
the eyepiece!
Observe the screen indoors, out of the cold.
Record your observations on an ordinary DVD recorder, or to the analogue input of a video camera, recording the
time.
Video recordings of meteors enable accurate estimates
of time and speed to be made.
Use as a video finder/tracking device for CCD
Imaging.
Use the camera for very low light security
applications – see what goes on in those dark places. You really can get a TV picture when the light is so low the human eye can see nothing.
How does it work?
The
cameras are CCTV video cameras, which incorporate the latest most
sensitive Sony video chip with 752 x 582 total pixels.
Similar CCD chips of this size are commonly used in CCD cameras
costing £900 or more. The cameras are high spec cameras with
control buttons and on-screen display for adjusting a wide range
of parameters. But what sets the camerasapart from all normal video cameras is it's ability to increase sensitivity by "frame integration". Up to 128 frames can be integrated (Mintron), and up to 510 frames with the WDR. This means
that, instead of refreshing the picture 50 times per second, the
camera can take a series of longer exposures, up to 2.6 seconds (Mintron) and 10.2 secs (WDR).
This results in a high sensitivity picture which is written to the TV
screen as video images.
No download waiting time!
Highest sensitivity is 128x frame integration, but 2x, 4x etc up
to 64x can also be selected.
What are the controls for the Mintron cameras?
The cameras are adjusted by five buttons on
the back of the camera itself (see image at near bottom of this page). An on-screen display (OSD) shows the various options. This is perfectly satisfactory for
Deep Sky work - you generally only need to set the camera once to
the optimum settings according to lens/telescope/seeing
conditions. Remote control would be superfluous. For planetary and lunar photography however, about six adjustments are necessary for each shot, and so the WDR camera is better suited to this work, as it has the enhancements of remote control via computer (PC lead not supplied). Nevertheless, perfectly good images of bright objects can be made with the 12V1-EX, provided the telescope is sturdily mounted for this high magnification imaging, as the Moon and Jupiter images below
demonstrate.
Mintron and CCD Cameras Compared
Of course, these integrating video cameras cannot quite match the long exposure, cooled chip capability of a £900 CCD camera to record fainter objects, but at what cost?. Even so, the cameras can, with the addition of a £39 capture card, share in the CCD camera's abilty to digitise images and enhance them. CCD cameras using the same size chip are not only more expensive, but are far more difficult to set up and use. Focussing, and pointing the camera are relatively simple tasks with the video cameras, with their real-time TV output.
The CCD camera simply cannot match the WDR/Mintron in their ease of use, and theunique ability to display live, real-time moving images of deep sky objects. This feature is not only so very useful in so many areas of astronomy, but it inables the astronomer to share his/her hobby with family and friends. Star parties will never be the same again. See the Comparison Page for a chart comparing the WDR, Mintron, and CCD cameras.
Three Cameras to choose from
Now, for the first time, these camersa allow you to view, live, the raw CCD images of dim objects as they are produced as a continuous TV picture, without having to wait (staring at a blank screen) for images to download, as is the case with CCD cameras. This feature represents a revolution in amateur astronomy, and brings numerous advantages to the astronomer.
Two factors bring this about: the incredible frame-integration technology of the cameras, and use of the SONY sensitive imaging chip. All cameras using the Ex-View chip will show some evidence of dead pixels (false stars) especially at maximum integration/gain settings during warm conditions.
Mintron 12V1 Cameras
The differences between the cameras is that the Mintron 12v1-EX uses the Sony Ex-view 1/2" imaging chip, whereas the 12v1-HAD uses the Sony HAD chip. The chips size of the Mintrons is 1/2", and the cameras are exclusively monochrome (black and white) cameras. The ex-view version is slightly more sensitive.
WDR Camera
The WDR camera uses a smaller 1/3" Sony chip, but has the same number of pixels. It has exposure time of up to 10 secs, compared with 2.5 secs for the Mintrons, and is therefore more sensiitive. It is a true day and night camera, with mechanical filters to deliver high sensitivity in dim conditions, while at the same time allowing the camera to produce correctly balance colour images. In B/W mode, the WDR easily exceeds the sensitivity of the Mintron Cameras, and its colour images show almost as much sensitivity as the BW images from the Mintrons.
Other Uses for the Cameras
Of course, the cameras can also be used for nocturnal security purposes, surveillance, or nocturnal wildlife, etc. First-time users never fail to be amazed at what the Mintron will show in very dark conditions. The shorter exposure times of the Mintron cameras make them more suited to this work.
Accessories
Please note that, unless you are to use the camera with a C or CS mount lens, you will require an eyepiece adapter to connect the camera to your telescope. You will also require a 12V regulated power suply, and cable to connect the output from the camera to a TV. These accessories, and more, included in the Full Kit camera packages or are are available separately at modest cost - See the Accessories Page.
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