WATEC WAT-902H2 Ultimate

[astrotoby]

I am about to purchase the WAT-902H2 Ultimate (http://genwac.com/products.php?prod_id=194).

I am not a technician and the world of CCTV cameras are new to me. I am wondering about the correct settings.

On the back of the camera you have three adjustable knobs or switches (in addition to the video out and power in). They are:

1) Gamma
2) MGC
3) AGC

Also on the side (opposite the iris input connector) you have:

4) BLC
5) Shutter

Does anyone know which settings to use for meteor detections? Any suggestions are much appreciated!!
(this question is also posted on Video Astronomy Forum)

Cheers, Toby

[BillW]

Hi,
Generally,

Gamma off
put agc to low.

Foget about mgc for the time being.

BLC to off
Shutter to off.

This will put the camera in a fixed 1/50 sec exposure which is what we want for meteor imaging.

Once you see how the camera behaves under your real world operating conditions you can try tinkering with the manual gain control (mgc)
The AGC High setting tends to produce a lot of noise and UFO trys to track all the noisiest pixels. Lots of false captures and your pc doing serious overtime!

It's just a matter of experience, a few nights worth of real observing and you'll see how everything works then you can start customising UFO Capture to suit.

cheers,
Bill.

[astrotoby]

Bill, thanks for your feedback!

~ Toby ~

[arp]

Re camera settings...

After I logged a request on the SonotaCo Forum, he recommended the following settings for my Watec 902H2...

Gamma OFF
AGC LO
Shutter Mode ON
AE Mode Control 8 EI : OFF

which allows it to vary between 1/50th - 1/100000th and should stop it 'hunting' in early twilight conditions.

I tried AGC HI, which boosted the Gain but it increased the noise level, and from my Leeds back garden it did not result in a fainter limiting mag nor more meteors.

Keep your cable run as short as possible between your camera and computer / capture device, and minimise the number of connections in the cable run - all to maintain as good a signal to noise ratio as possible.

Cheers,

Alex.

[astrotoby]

Thanks Alex for your feedback!