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Re: (meteorobs) Digital Camera

 Thanks Gary, for the information, I had my doubts,
 about Digitals, but was wondering if there was
 anything new on the market useful for meteor work.
 I'll stick with my 35mm SLR then, and eventually
 switch to video instead.
----- Original Message -----
From: Gary Wilson
To: meteorobs@atmob.org
Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2002 6:16 AM
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) Digital Camera

In reply to Thom Morgan.
 
Although I am no technical expert,I can see a few problems with using a digital camera for meteor capture.
 
1.Maximum exposure is usually in the order of 3 or 4 seconds.10 minute exposures are desirable.
 
2.Battery life would be a limiting factor,even more so if a camera could comply with extended exposure time.
 
3.Light sensitivity compared to conventional film can reach equivalent of 1600iso but image quality is limited to lower resolution settings.
 
4.Damp and extreme cold would have a detrimental effect on such a sensitive device.
 
5.Media storage would be exhausted with file sizes being so large due to the high resolutions required.
 
This is one field where the old technology is better.
 
A simple manual camera requiring no power source,where the shutter can be left open indefinitely.
A wide angle lens (24-28mm) with an F2-2.8 aperture.
A conventional film such as Fuji Neopan 1600,giving a nice relatively fine grained result.
 
Gary Wilson
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