Astrovideography is an exciting and less demanding form of astronomical imaging than other methods. I prefer to call this form of imaging 'Observational Imaging'. This is a very pleasing form of 'sharing the eyepiece' as a number of observers can see what is being viewed at the same time on the TV screen. Using video signal splitters, the live video stream can be enjoyed indoors on a TV screen while a smaller version of the screen can be outside by the telescope. The video can be recorded to DVD or video-tape for viewing again later. If your telescope mount is not well polar aligned, or is an altazimuth driven mount, image rotation or image drift will be far less important if your primary aim is to capture and view your astronomical images on the TV screen.
That notwithstanding, it is still possible to capture video frames and to combine them into quite pleasing still images even with quite modest equipment. This image of M27 was obtained with a Celestron Astromaster 130 Newtonian and a Mintron 23S85HC-EX-R monochrome, frame-integrating video camera.
I shall be testing the various Mintron cameras with a variety of telescopes of all sizes over the next few months and showing some of the results on this blog.The new deep-sky colour Mintrons that we are developing will be launched at the European Astrofest by Telescope Planet
Watch this space!
