Post by plutronus on Jul 30, 2013 3:18:53 GMT -6
Y'all probably already know of this?
OpticTracker System
The key to the 'system' is the software (there's a basic freebie version available), a streaming USB camera and a motorized telescope tripod.
What is it?
www.optictracker.com/What_is_it.html
What does it work with?
www.optictracker.com/Compatibility.html
How much does it cost?
www.optictracker.com/Products.html
The camera that the OpticTracker folks recommend for use with their software is a 'NexImage X2' which costs around $200.
The motorized catadioptic 'telescope' come in various flavors (maybe Cliff can offer some insights for us?), most are COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) units, one of which is a Celestron LX-200 at about $400 which comes with a catadioptic lens, 100mm ~ 2500 mm zoom, which is perfect for within atmosphere imaging.
This technology originated in the DIY astronomy hackers community over the past 20yrs, and recently, there has been a boon of airplane watchers, a bit of a weird hobby, where folks try to identify and match aircraft tail numbers to flight plans, and then they modified their hobby to use CCD video-cameras mounted on motorized astronomy telescopes. But outer-space object viewing telescopes have a too small viewing aperture and the slew-rate is too slow, so a modified motorized telescope with a catadioptic lens were developed to replace those. The average zoom range is around 1000 ~ 2500 mm, which is useful for within-atmosphere object viewing/videoing. One version uses a joystick to aim the lens while while watching through a finder-scope (little more pricey...~$1500).
Got any idears what these plane-spotting auto-object-tracking motorized video cameras systems might be useful for?
Hah hah hee hee!
ka-lemtah
OpticTracker System
The key to the 'system' is the software (there's a basic freebie version available), a streaming USB camera and a motorized telescope tripod.
What is it?
www.optictracker.com/What_is_it.html
What does it work with?
www.optictracker.com/Compatibility.html
How much does it cost?
www.optictracker.com/Products.html
The camera that the OpticTracker folks recommend for use with their software is a 'NexImage X2' which costs around $200.
The motorized catadioptic 'telescope' come in various flavors (maybe Cliff can offer some insights for us?), most are COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) units, one of which is a Celestron LX-200 at about $400 which comes with a catadioptic lens, 100mm ~ 2500 mm zoom, which is perfect for within atmosphere imaging.
This technology originated in the DIY astronomy hackers community over the past 20yrs, and recently, there has been a boon of airplane watchers, a bit of a weird hobby, where folks try to identify and match aircraft tail numbers to flight plans, and then they modified their hobby to use CCD video-cameras mounted on motorized astronomy telescopes. But outer-space object viewing telescopes have a too small viewing aperture and the slew-rate is too slow, so a modified motorized telescope with a catadioptic lens were developed to replace those. The average zoom range is around 1000 ~ 2500 mm, which is useful for within-atmosphere object viewing/videoing. One version uses a joystick to aim the lens while while watching through a finder-scope (little more pricey...~$1500).
Got any idears what these plane-spotting auto-object-tracking motorized video cameras systems might be useful for?
Hah hah hee hee!
ka-lemtah