Then what is a live image worth? A lot more! It's not just the image though. It is seeing the live image, the experience of slewing your telescope to a point in the sky you just chose, seeing star trails on the screen until the telescope starts tracking that precise area of the sky, and seeing your target object appear on the screen. Then you fine tune your settings, maybe increase the exposure time a few more seconds, and you see your selected object better than you ever saw it through your eyepiece.
I admit you sometimes can't help but click the capture image button for a permanent memory of what you are seeing live. Maybe you want something to show so you can tell somebody about it later. But a recorded picture is not the essence of video astronomy. It is the experience itself that is important. And others can experience it right there with you in real time. If you do capture some images, they will probably not be "as good" as astrophotography pictures, but they are still pretty amazing. All camera "pictures" on this site are real time captures of the image being viewed at the time.
Astrophotography is certainly its own worthy pursuit that produces a high resolution picture with even better detail and color. But it's a different process and experience. You will typically spend more time capturing images of just a few targets in one evening. Then you invest more of your time after you put up your telescope to work with your captured images using post processing techniques, and produce the best picture you can get. For DSO astrophotography, you will typically need very good tracking and maybe even use autoguiding. The efforts you put into astrophotography can be very rewarding, but it’s different from Video Astronomy. With Video Astronomy you capture the moment.
Extending Video Astronomy inside through RVA techniques provides yet another unique type of experience. Being an engineer and programmer I have always been intrigued with robotics and computer remote control. Having planetarium software enabling you to slew to your target and then compare the expected image to what you see live on your screen is really great.
It's nice to be inside, pick out an object on your laptop's screen, and then click to initiate your telescope moving to that specific point in the sky from your current spot on Earth, watch the display showing the camera's image as stars stream by, and it slows and settles in on your target. Then after a few adjustments you tell someone nearby ... take a look at this! And you both look at it together at the same time.
I admit you sometimes can't help but click the capture image button for a permanent memory of what you are seeing live. Maybe you want something to show so you can tell somebody about it later. But a recorded picture is not the essence of video astronomy. It is the experience itself that is important. And others can experience it right there with you in real time. If you do capture some images, they will probably not be "as good" as astrophotography pictures, but they are still pretty amazing. All camera "pictures" on this site are real time captures of the image being viewed at the time.
Astrophotography is certainly its own worthy pursuit that produces a high resolution picture with even better detail and color. But it's a different process and experience. You will typically spend more time capturing images of just a few targets in one evening. Then you invest more of your time after you put up your telescope to work with your captured images using post processing techniques, and produce the best picture you can get. For DSO astrophotography, you will typically need very good tracking and maybe even use autoguiding. The efforts you put into astrophotography can be very rewarding, but it’s different from Video Astronomy. With Video Astronomy you capture the moment.
Extending Video Astronomy inside through RVA techniques provides yet another unique type of experience. Being an engineer and programmer I have always been intrigued with robotics and computer remote control. Having planetarium software enabling you to slew to your target and then compare the expected image to what you see live on your screen is really great.
It's nice to be inside, pick out an object on your laptop's screen, and then click to initiate your telescope moving to that specific point in the sky from your current spot on Earth, watch the display showing the camera's image as stars stream by, and it slows and settles in on your target. Then after a few adjustments you tell someone nearby ... take a look at this! And you both look at it together at the same time.
Later on you tell someone, I gotta show you an image of what we saw that night.
And this.
And this.
And the other day I was checking out some sunspots (while inside where I can see a lot better) and saw this...
And last night I saw...
And you talk about what you experienced that night.
And you talk about what you experienced that night.
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