Going for the B&W sky camera

I cant mind who has it but i mind talking to you about it and it sounds really good. Can you just give me a reminder and how much the full package will cost for me to get up and running

Thanks Conor

What would you reckon would be the best out of these cameras.

www.aegis-elec.com/products/watec-cam.html

In a price of about £250max

Hi Conor,

If you remember our discussion posting "Security camera for Aurora Viewing" Nov 13, 2005 last I thought the WATEC 902 H was good for the money. I gave you some rough idea as to pricing of the system I bought at the time. However, if you can afford it I would recommend the WATEC 120 N because of its increase in sensitivity as comapred to the 902 H.

As before in our discussion I don't know the prices. I would have expected that the 902 H would have come down in price. You could try Buy & Sell (Ireland) might sell one second hand. Of course they may not go into the technical details that us amateur astronomers need. An alternative is Ebay or Anascortes telescope exchage may have the Mintron 120 N which is the eqivalent of the Watec 120 N.

Go for a fast lens at about f/1.2 with C mounting, especially for Aurorae and meteors.

Eamonn A

I dont really know much about this camera. You said go for that lens, is it not just a camera with a built in lens behind a screen like any other camera. So what lens and how much more is that

I see these on ebay but the Lux isnt to high

search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocu...mp;fsop=1&fsoo=1


Also can the watec be used as a normal daytime camera

If you are buying the camera from the website you found, it looks as if the camera is without the lens. This may be the case, because there are different applications in surveillance. For example, one person may need a zoom in facility from 80 to 200mm (long distance). Others may just want fixed field of view of say 30 degrees to cover a specific area for security reasons. I had bought a lens that is just wide field at f/1.2.

It really will be your choice, I am just sharing the camera and lens I bought at the time that I thought was suitable for aurorae. As reiterated in the 13th Nov posting, I found it suitable.

Another avenue to try is to buy an old Astrovid 1000 or in particular 2000. The camera with the f/1.2 lens would be excellent choice. Anascortes telescope exchange may have one for sale.

Eamonn A