Manual 7

1 [email protected]
Email:
Web: www.astrophoto.co.uk
Tel: 07871 103084
Fax: 01322 250152
PD Colour Astro Video Camera
QUICK START MANUAL
Introduction
Congratulations on your purchase of a PD Camera. This camera is so versatile, you’ll find so many different uses for
the camera in observing the night sky.
PD cameras are the latest generation Huviron CCTV cameras, selected for their
supreme sensitivity, and modified by us for astronomy uses. The PD
video camera is so wonderfully versatile, that you will quickly find it
indispensable for most of your astronomy activities.
First of all, it’s so easy to use. You don’t always need to connect it to
a telescope. You can use it with small lenses, camera lenses and the like,
on small photo tripods. Very light, very transportable. Easy to set up
(plugs to any TV).
It’s powerful. It packs a lot of power into its small size. Whatever lens
system you use it with, will seem 4 times bigger – so your 50mm camera
lens will match any 200mm scope in magnitudes. And even the small lens
supplied will show wide views and all those stars you miss out on due to
light pollution.
It’s flexible. It has the sensitivity to display deep sky objects in real time,
but also the speed and flexibility to display brighter objects like the moon
and planets, and even fast moving objects like meteors and man made
satellites.
It’s adaptable. You don’t need to connect the camera to a PC/Laptop, but
you can if you like. All cabling, software, etc is provided. Then you can
process your observations and dramatically increasing the sensitivity and
sharpness of images.
It’s shareable. You can easily share with others. A whole crowd can view on
PC or TV screen – even indoors with the telescope outside. No more
standing around in the cold waiting for a short turn at the eyepiece.
All this might sound quite complicated but its simple really, and these
specially written instructions are designed to have you up and running within
a few minutes.
The PD Camera package (Full Kit):
PD Colour Camera
Wide-angle lens
12V mains adapter
Cable and connectors for TV/PC display
Capture device for PC Display and Capture
1.25” Eyepiece Adapter for telescopes
2
Phil Dyer (PD) Colour Astro Video Camera
INSTRUCTION MANUAL
Contents
page
Connections and initial Set-up
3
For display on a TV set
3
For Display and capture on a PC or Laptop
Install Capture Device drivers
3
4
PC Display and Capture using POWER DIRECTOR
Setting up the camera in Power Director
Capturing Video and single frames
5
5
6
PC Display and Capture using MEDIA PLAYER CLASSIC
Setting up the camera in Media Player Classic
Capturing Video and single frames
7
7
8
Image Processing
9
On Screen Display (OSD) Camera Settings
9 – 11
Specifications
12
3
Connections and initial Set-up
To start with, use the camera with the small lens provided.
Then, connect the video cable, and power cable from the mains
adapter, into the back of the camera as shown.
Note: Power supply is connected regardless polarity.
As
necessary, press with fingernail (as shown) to connect/disconnect
wires.
For display on a TV set
After connecting the mains adapter power cable and the video
cable to the camera as shown above, connect the other end of the
Video Cable to the “Video In” socket on the TV (see right).
Use the TV remote to change the TV channel to “AV”.
Plug in and switch on the mains adapter, and you’re done.
You then need to adjust the Brightness and/or Contrast settings
of your TV in conjunction with the OSD settings on the pages 9 11.
Image on the right is a snapshot of the TV screen, taken with a
small digital camera.
For Display and capture on a PC/Laptop
Connect the power and video cables to the camera as shown at
the top of this page.
Switch on your PC/Laptop and wait till it’s fully booted up.
Connect the video output from the Camera to the KWorld DVD
Maker, and then plug the DVD maker into the USB port on your
PC/Laptop.
Plug in the mains adapter and switch on.
The green light on the back of the camera should light up.
If the windows “Welcome to the Found New Hardware Wizard”
pops up, then cancel out of the screen.
4
For the first time only, you will need to install the drivers
and software:-
Insert the Kworld PlusTV Driver Installation CD-ROM
into your PC’s CD or DVD drive.
Select “Driver Installation”, and follow the on-screen
instructions.
Once Driver Installation is complete, you then need to
install software for viewing live output to your PC/laptop,
and for capturing video and images.
You have 2 choices (2 CDs) Media Player Classic, or the Power Director 5 software.
Media Player Classic gives full screen viewing, and is all you need for astronomy
use. And is easy to install, you simply copy the exe file
from the CD to any folder on your PC. Double-click the
exe file to run the application.
Power Director is a full movie editing suit, but does not
offer full screen viewing, and may not work with
Windows 8. If you install it from the CD,
you will then need to Restart the computer.
5
PC Display and Capture using Power Director
TV
Change Folder
LIVE
DISPLAY
Profile
Record/
Stop
Snapshot
Setting up the camera in “Power Director”
This Power Director program is very comprehensive and will
capture any analogue input, from old Video Cassettes for example,
and turn them into digital format, which you can then burn to
DVD using the Power producer program.
Power Director may not work with Windows 8, however. If you
decided to install Power Director, this section describes how you
use it. Otherwise, skip to next section "Media Player Classic".
Connect the camera to your PC/laptop as described in Page 3.
Then in Power Director, you will see the first screen as shown on
the right.
The first thing to do is to set up the camera in Power Director
Start by clicking the “Capture” button.
Then click on the “Capture from TV” button
Settings
6
Newest Version of Power Director should detect the camera
Automatically. If camera is not detected, then Click on the “Settings” button
Then set “Capture Device” and “Capture Source” as shown on
the right. A live video picture should appear on screen.
You can adjust the screen picture (brightness, contrast, etc) by
clicking the Settings button, then “Adjust Video”
Click on the “Profile” button
Then set Profile.
The settings are a matter of personal choice. Some good
settings are shown on the right. These particular ones
capture “raw” data, ie no compression (which you can
check by clicking the Settings button (shown on the
right).
That completes the camera set-up in Power Director
Capturing Video and single frames
To record video, click on the RECORD button.
Use the same button to stop recording.
Alternatively, you can pre-set the duration of the video
capture by ticking the “Time limit” box (see right), and entering
a time in hours:mins:secs.
Then click the RECORD button; the video capture will stop
automatically when the set time is up.
To Capture a single frame,
click on the SNAPSHOT button.
NOTE: Your captured videos and single frames are shown in the
“Captured Clips” window (see right). The files are saved, by
default, to the MyWorks folder on your computer Hard Drive.
Before capture, you can change where your files will be saved,
by clicking on the Change Folder button.
7
PC Display and Capture using Media Player Classic
Media Player Classic is a simple but effective freeware program which does a good job of displaying video
full screen. And it will capture still images and video streams from the PD camera.
The program is “stand-alone”. This means that no installation is necessary – you simply copy the program
exe file (supplied on the PD Camera computer disk) to a suitable folder on your PC/laptop.
To run the application, simply double-click the exe file.
Setting up the camera in “Media Player Classic”
Once Media Player Classic is up and running, set up the
camera as follows.
Connect the camera to your PC/laptop as described in Page 3.
Open the camera in Media Player Classic by clicking File, Open
Device (as shown on the right)
Then choose the 2860 Video device (as shown on the right).
Then click OK.
8
Capturing Video and single frames in Media Player Classic
To save the current display as a STILL IMAGE,
click File, Save Image (as shown on the right)
To save the current moving display as a
STREAM -
VIDEO
click File, Capture (as shown on the right)
Then set the parameters as shown below
Choose frame size
(640 x 480 is good)
But frame rate must
be 25.00.
Then click the SET
button.
Choose “uncompressed”
Choose folder for saving video
Click “Record” to start,
and “Stop” to finish.
9
Image Processing
Free Processing Software
Now that you’ve captured your video, you’ll want to process it.
Single image snapshots can be processed with any imaging software.
But to get the most from you images/video, it’s best to combine
many images, or a complete video stream, into a single image. This
process has the effect of dramatically increasing the sensitivity
and sharpness of images produced with the Camera.
Other Software
Other software, which is not free, but has the advantage of
combining the processes of capturing and processing in a single
program, are:
On Screen Display (OSD) Settings
What are important are the 5 push buttons labelled ENTER, U,
D, L, R (up, down, left, right)
Pressing the middle button (ENTER) activates the OSD menu.
Select the individual functions via the UP and DOWN buttons.
Change a parameter by pressing the LEFT and RIGHT buttons.
“”
after a selection, indicates that there is a sub-menu; this
is activated via the middle button. RETURN takes one to the
previous menu.
The screenshot shows the Main menu.
Exposure Menu - LENS
Set LENS to MANUAL, as shown.
A very good application for this purpose is the
completely free DeepSkyStacker, which can be
downloaded from here:
http://deepskystacker.free.fr/eng
lish/index.html
Also good is the free Registax, which can be
downloaded from here:
http://www.astronomie.be/registax/dow
nload.html
Astrovideo
http://www.coaa.co.uk/astrovideo.
htm
K3CCDtools
http://www.pk3.org/Astro/index.htm?
k3ccdtools.htm
10
Exposure Menu - LENS
Shutter speed default value is 1/50 sec, and this is
fine for Deep Sky viewing.
For brighter objects, (provided the SENSE-UP is set
to OFF), the LENS, MANUAL sub menu allows you to
set the shutter speed to any value from 1/50 sec
down to 1/100000 sec.
Exposure Menu – AGC, and SENSE-UP
AGC can be set to LOW, MEDIUM, or HIGH, to
increase the sensitivity of the camera.
SENSE-UP can be set to values up to 1024x fields,
(up to 20 seconds).
Higher values of AGC and SENSE-UP bring some
increased noise, particularly if the camera is used in
warm conditions (eg indoors).
Exposure Menu – 3D-DNR
Digital Noise Reduction can be set at Auto, or
Low, Med and High.
White Balance Menu
ATW is the default value, and the default values are fine for
most imaging purposes.
A fully MANUAL option is also available.
In each case, the R-Y B-Y colour balance of the image can
adjusted manually.
Day Night Menu
D&N MODE should be set to COLOR.
The Camera’s original design incorporated an IRCUT filter which would kick-in, in Colour mode.
In this PD version of the camera, this filter has
been disabled to make the camera suitable for
deep sky imaging.
11
Image Adjust Menu
Gamma should be set to 0.45 to 1.00 for bright
objects.
For Deep sky, set Gamma to USER, then set to
a lower value, like 0.30 or 0.35.
Special Menu
DPC
Here you can set the level of Defective Pixel
Correction, for Bright Pixels and Dead Pixels.
Increasing the value of WHITE THR will turn
bright pixels off. But use sparingly, since high
values may result in star images being turned
off.
Special Menu – FACTORY SETTINGS
To return the camera to its factory settings,
change FACTORT SET to YES, then press
ENTER button.
AUTO WHITE BALANCE AWB
AWB MODE - PUSH
The camera is supplied without an IR Cut filter.
This means that images will have a predominately
red cast, with terrestrial infra red sources
(such as foliage in sunlight) showing bright. The
AWB feature can be used to “correct” this
colour cast. It's not very scientific, but it does
produce most interesting results, both
terrestrially and astronomically.
SAVING YOUR CHANGES
EXIT
- SAVE&EXIT
To save any changes made, go to the
EXIT menu, and select SAVE&EXIT.
12
Specifications
The PD Colour Camera (modified Huviron).
Imaging chip: Sony SuperHAD CCD II, ICX639BKA
Chip size: Diagonal 6mm (Type 1/3"); 4.89mm (H) x 3.64mm (V)
Number of effective pixels: 752 (H) x 582 (V);
Total number of pixels: 795 (H) x 596 (V);
Pixel size: 6.5 microns (H) x 6.25 microns (V)
Resolution: 600 TV lines
The camera features on-board controls for full control of gain, shutter speed, sensitivity, gamma, pixel correction, digital noise
reduction, etc. For details, see the technical Manual sheet PDF
As with any CCD camera, you should bear in mind that the field of view with telescopes can be quite small. The Camera's chip size is
6.1mm diagonal and the field of view with various focal lengths is as follows:Focal Length
2000 mm
1000 mm
500 mm
200 mm
100 mm
Field of View (diagonal)
10 minutes of arc
21 minutes of arc
42 minutes of arc
1.8 degrees
3.5 degrees
Focal Length
75 mm
50 mm
25 mm
16mm
12.5m
Field of View (diagonal)
4.7 degrees
7.0 degrees
14 degrees
22 degrees
28 degrees
The following is a guide to the limiting magnitudes (stars) which can be seen live on TV screen when the PD Camera is fitted to
telescopes/lenses of various apertures. Some users claim to have bettered these figures. In practice, the limiting magnitude will
depend largely on local conditions. The figures below assume dark, clear skies. In town conditions the figures might be reduced by up
to 2 magnitudes or more. The figures will also be reduced if the optics are of poor quality, or if they are poorly focused.
Telescope/Lens Aperture
200mm (8")
125 mm (1000mm f8)
100 mm (1000mm f10)
75 mm (300mm f4 )
Limiting Magnitude (stars)
17 mag
16 mag
15.5 mag
15 mag
Telescope/Lens Aperture
50mm (135mm f2.8)
36 mm (135mm f4)
18 mm (25mm f1.4)
10mm (16mm f1.6)
Limiting Magnitude (stars)
14 mag
13.3 mag
11.8 mag
10.5 mag