Category: Imaging

Articles and blog posts about imaging celestial object by Alexandru Csete OZ9AEC.

Lunar eclipse and my new camera

I got up early this morning to watch the lunar eclipse. In Denmark only partial eclipse was visible since the moon went down already at around 7:40 UTC where I live. Unfortunately, it was cloudy so I didn’t even see the partial eclipse. Too bad because it seems that my new Fuji HS10 camera with 30x optical zoom is quite well suited for taking photos of the moon without any telescope. I took this photo of the full moon yesterday evening while trying to find some proper settings for capturing the eclipse

Full Moon (cropped)

Not bad for a 500€ camera, is it? More photos here. I got the camera about a week and I didn’t have much time to get acquainted with it so I expect the pictures will improve as time goes.

The camera has some pretty neat high speed video recording modes which was one of the reasons I bought it.

High Definition Broadcasting Experiments

As you may know I have been flirting with live broadcasting on Ustream for a while now. While it is a great free service I was not particularly happy about the default webcam stream, which appears to be very low resolution, not much higher than 320×240. Ustream offers high quality streaming using their browser plugin and even high definition-like using the Flash Media Live Encoder from Adobe. Unfortunately, neither of these is available for anything else than Windows.

I wanted to try so much that I even tried the Flash Media Live Encoder under Vista. Well, it was a total fail… My computer froze after broadcasting a few seconds even at VGA-like resolutions. I think I spent a whole Sunday trying various configurations and setting but no luck. Slow computer? Buggy software? Probably both.

Few days ago I learned that Adobe is now in the process of making a Mac version of Flash Media Live Encoder. Hurray! In fact, it is already available for selected beta testers but no timeline for public release. Fortunately, I was able to find a kind soul who has shared the beta package for Mac with the rest of the world (thanks Google search for finding me this) and so I got the opportunity to become an unofficial beta tester.

Continue reading “High Definition Broadcasting Experiments”

More Moon with a webcam

Here is my latest attempt in my Moon with a Webcam series, though this time I used a very cheap camcorder instead of a webcam. Still plenty of room for improvement.

I used a Meade ETX-90 telescope f=1250mm with 26mm eyepiece → 48X magnification. This time I was holding the camera by hand but I have a plan for improving that part.

The Moon on Blue Sky

I caught the moon tonight right after sunset while the sky was still blue. Here is a video I recorded using my JVC Everio GZ-MG130E video camera. I didn’t use any telescope, just the camera zoom. It can do up to 32x optical zoom and something like 800x digital zoom. The highest zoom on this video is around 40x

Recorded: 6 April 2009 around 20:00 CET – Place: Copenhagen, Denmark (10th floor)

The Moon with a Webcam

I am working on a setup where I want to mount a cheap webcam onto my Meade ETX-90 telescope for terrestrial observations. While I was working on the setup the other night I looked out the window and saw the Moon behind a tree. Without thinking too much I pointed the telescope towards the Moon and recorded this video.

As for the bad quality keep in mind that:

  • it was recorded through a double-glas window (which was dirty)
  • the Moon was behind a tree
  • it was recorded with a webcam