Hello folks...Night Vision is my 'thing"!!, page 2

a reply to: ProjectPhyrePhly

Hey Dear

I have just ordered Night Owl IGen 20/20 monocular. I have an 8 inches Synscan Goto AZ mount based SkyWatcher Dobsonian Reflector. I am a Ufologist and love to watch using my telescope. Recently I used a Raspberry Pi 3 and modified its Pi NoIR Cam by removing its lens and placing a C mount adapter to fit it in the eyepiece holder of my SkyWatcher. The challenging part was to use the correct command and parameters for "raspistill" to get a long exposure image of the dark sky. I am using a 7 inches HDMI touch screen as a view finder and I am getting good images of faint stars using this command in Raspbian Jessie:-

raspistill -hf -vf -ss 3000000 -ISO 800 -sh 50 -br 65 -sa -75 -t 0 -f

This command is for long exposure live view on the screen. If you want to capture the image the best setting for it is

raspistill -hf -vf -ss 2000000 -ISO 800 -sh 50 -br 65 -sa -75 -o /path/filename.jpg

I am surprised why the best bright view in live view is only when shutter speed -ss is 3000000
and while capturing the images its best only when -ss has a value of 2000000 with -f and -t off.

-f argument let me see the long exposure image in fullscreen mode on my HDMI display. I am powering up Pi with ROMOSS SOLO 9 Powerbank using its 2.1 A usb port. Since the live image is a result of 3 secs exposure so it updates every 3 secs and hence causes motion blur. But it let me see very faint objects which are not visible to unaided eye. Last night I saw an object moving in zig zag fashion with Pi Noir cam fitted with its original IR lens on it with same raspstill command and parameters. But it was not visible to unaided eye which was a weird part. I initially thought it could be some reflection but when I again pointed the camera in the general direction, the hdmi screen showed the same object which was going down toward the horizon by that time. I was sure it was a UFO with IR emission coz it was so bright in the HDMI screen being captured by IR sensor of Pi NoIR cam, whereas on the other hand it was not visible at all to my unaided eyes.

My Next step is to use IGEN 20/20 as an eyepiece to get video stream from its Video Out port. For that I have to use prime focus technique by removing the front objective lens of the IGEN and by using a C Mount adapter I have to get the image focused on the sensor. BUT I AM NOT SURE THAT CAN I REMOVE THE OBJECTIVE LENS OF IGEN EASILY AND USE A C MOUNT ADAPTER TO FIT IT IN AS EYEPIECE OF THE 1.25" HOLDER OF MY TELESCOPE. IF ANYONE CAN GUIDE ME PLEASE. I SHALL BE GRATEFUL.

Clear Skies