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Post by michaelmorris on Apr 13, 2014 10:36:32 GMT
I’m upgrading my all-sky video meteor detection set up. For the last couple of years I‘ve been running a Samsung SDC-435 with a cheap 2.1mm board lens all housed in a homemade (bodged) dome. (http://www.almiraobservatory.co.uk/ - see page page 16 of the Construction section) I’ve recently bought a Watec 902H2 Ultimate and a Computar 2.6mm F1.0 Auto-iris lens. I’m now trying to work out the best way of housing this kit. My current housing won’t accommodate this new set up. I’ve looked at a couple of options but can’t yet find anything that exactly fits the bill. www.cloudbait.com/projects/allskycamera.htmlI want to have the following options. - I want the ability to fit a Nichrome wire heating element around the inside of the dome to keep dew in check and to help dry out the dome after rain/snow. Importantly, I want the heating element not to heat the camera as this just creates thermal noise. - I want the ability to readily access the camera for tweaking the focus and exposure settings. - I want to add a fan to reduce thermal noise in camera to a minimum. I may want to later fit a peltier cooler to reduce the camera noise further. Has anyone seen/got examples of this type of set up?
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Post by BillW on Apr 13, 2014 13:24:39 GMT
Hi, Your questions/points demonstrate the difficulty in meeting all the ideal characteristics! There are several enclosures on ebay that have a heater and that can be split lengthwise for easier access. Might be worth have a look there. You could probably modify one of these for a small fan.
cheers, Bill.
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Post by michaelmorris on Apr 13, 2014 20:49:46 GMT
The CCTV enclosures would be fine for a longer focal length lens, but with such a wide field of view, a normal enclosure is going to cause significant vignetting.
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Post by michaelmorris on Apr 13, 2014 20:52:44 GMT
The CCTV enclosures would be fine for a longer focal length lens, but with such a wide field of view, a normal enclosure is going to cause significant vignetting.
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Post by stewartw on Apr 14, 2014 6:45:30 GMT
Hi Michael,
One possibility may be to take a commercially produced CCTV housing, remove the flat front glass window and replace it with a clear plastic dome - just google "ebay plastic dome camera housing" for lots of dome options.
This will get you a robost enclosure with associated mounting hardware, demist heater and wire access holes. In terms of keeping the camera cool in order to reduce thermal noise, I can't say I've seen a significnat difference in noise levels between Winter and Summer use, when night-time temperatures differences will be at least 10 degrees C.
Best regards
William
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Post by michaelmorris on Apr 14, 2014 7:37:21 GMT
I did a quick and dirty test on my Watec 902 Ultimate and found a small drop in noise when I put a small heat sink/fan combination attached to the housing.
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