Is sensitivity adjustable for displaying DSO's?

[stpeng168]

Hello,

 

I am using the BackyardNikon as screen projection tool to view DSO images on laptop (include some faint nebulae and galaxies). 

But I often feel that the sensitivity is not high enough, even using StarHD/Stack feature. The user manual touches a little in the section "live view focus" but didn't expand. I wonder if there is any way I can adjust this, perhaps in settings - live view - max sensitivity, or throttle(what's that)? BTW  my camera is a Nikon D600

 

Your help is highly appreciated. Happy Holidays.

[admin]

There is not a lot of data to work with in a live view frame, it's only a few millisecond so it will be faint.  

You may have to revert to snapping images of a second or 2 (in a loop) instead of live view.... but that is going to spam the shutter.

• max sensitivity will use the higher ISO bot it does not work for most Nikon, mostly Canon.
• stack will stack x live view frame... meaning each image you see is a stack of x live view frames
• throttle is a wait time in milliseconds between live view frame to slow it down a bit... this is needed for slower computers because the can't handle more than 20fps, increasing this will slow down live view streaming,

what about the gamma and other sliders, do the help?

Regards,

[stpeng168]

19 hours ago, admin said:

There is not a lot of data to work with in a live view frame, it's only a few millisecond so it will be faint.  

You may have to revert to snapping images of a second or 2 (in a loop) instead of live view.... but that is going to spam the shutter.

• max sensitivity will use the higher ISO bot it does not work for most Nikon, mostly Canon.
• stack will stack x live view frame... meaning each image you see is a stack of x live view frames
• throttle is a wait time in milliseconds between live view frame to slow it down a bit... this is needed for slower computers because the can't handle more than 20fps, increasing this will slow down live view streaming,

what about the gamma and other sliders, do the help?

Regards,

Contrast works somewhat, so does Brightness to a lesser degree, but Gamma doesn't work at all. Also I found I have to use Edge1/2 as well. So far I managed to display some brighter objects like stars/clusters on screen but it has not yet been so successful for nebulae and galaxies, given the poor seeing condition in my area. I suspect Edge 1/2 may not work on nebulae as well as stars.

I read that in Live View each individual frame is generated at ~1/10 sec rate. I wonder if there is a way to change this default setting. Otherwise it may be worth awhile getting ZWO cameras like ASI294MC or ASI183MM since they are more sensitive to low light condition and you don't have a DSLR type of shuttle to mess around with.

Your input is highly appreciated.

Thank you and clear skies. -Steven.

 

[admin]

There is no way to change the actual live view physical exposure length, this is built-in the camera.

As far as seeing galaxies and nebulas with a DSLR live view this is just not going to happen.  DSLRs are design for day time use and they are simply not optimized to achieve that level of night time imaging with live view.  

Regards,

[s3igell]

DSLRs like the D600 will never produce Real-time Video of DSO Images.  But then, the CCD and CMOS  Astro Cams can't either - unless they are one of the few EAA Cameras such as the MallinCam Extreme.  These cameras are special-purpose and cost every bit as much as an Enthusiast DSLR, yet produce about 1 MegaPixel Resolution.  These Cameras work by special Video Accumulator Circuitry which does the equivalent of Stacking.

There is simply no alternative to Exposure Duration.  Only so many Photons make it into your Optics from those distant DSOs.

[stpeng168]

49 minutes ago, s3igell said:

DSLRs like the D600 will never produce Real-time Video of DSO Images.  But then, the CCD and CMOS  Astro Cams can't either - unless they are one of the few EAA Cameras such as the MallinCam Extreme.  These cameras are special-purpose and cost every bit as much as an Enthusiast DSLR, yet produce about 1 MegaPixel Resolution.  These Cameras work by special Video Accumulator Circuitry which does the equivalent of Stacking.

There is simply no alternative to Exposure Duration.  Only so many Photons make it into your Optics from those distant DSOs.

Thanks for the feedback. It saves me a bundle not going down that path 😉

For now i just limit myself to the set of useful BN features such as focusing aid and planning of long exposure imaging. 

Clear skies!