WHAT IS VIDEO ASTRONOMY?
A common problem plaguing amateur astronomers today is the prevalence of light pollution.  The need to travel to a dark sky site in order to observe anything other than the Moon and planets makes it more difficult for amateurs to observe regularly.  This also makes it difficult to encourage new people to join the hobby, especially young people.  Video Astronomy has the ability to remove all these hindrances to observing from the city, opening up the hobby to everyone.

Most people are familiar with observing the night sky using a telescope.  You simply put your eye to the eyepiece and let the scope focus the light directly into your eye, greatly magnified and brightened.  Video Astronomy instead uses a camera to receive the light from your telescope.  You then observe the resulting images live on a TV monitor or computer screen.  The experience is just as "live" as if you were using an eyepiece, the difference being that a camera has some distinct advantages over the human eye:

  • your view is in full colour, allowing you to see the sky as it truly is and not what our dark adapted eyes limit us to;
  • the video can be displayed on a TV monitor or computer screen, right next to the telescope or inside your house where it is warm, dry, and bug-free;
  • the video can be easily observed by many people simultaneously, making it perfect for outreach programs held by clubs, planetariums, museums, of just you and your family;
  • the video can be streamed over the internet to allow anyone anywhere in the world to watch it live;
  • the video can be saved for archival purposes or for image processing later;
  • the camera works with whatever telescope you presently have, not just those specially designed for imaging;
  • the camera installs just like a normal eyepiece, and is otherwise relatively easy to use;
  • setup tasks like mount alignment, focusing, and scope collimation are much easier viewing a video screen;
  • the camera uses a modern CCD or CMOS sensor combined with sophisticated video processing circuitry, providing high levels of sensitivity including wavelengths not visible with the human eye;
  • filters designed for visual and/or imaging applications can be used for effective reduction of light pollution

Picture
Example images captured using a MallinCam astro-video camera (single video frames).
For more information on Video Astronomy, we encourage you to visit user groups online like the Mallincam groups.io/g/mallincam  Below is some additional material on the topic, written by members of the Video Astronomy community.

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