Well this is something that you don’t see every day.
The so called AstroScope image intensified camera module has been produced by ElectroPhysics (now SofraDir) for at least a decade. These devices are designed to work elegantly with both Nikon and Canon DSLR’s and previously SLR’s (film). One simply removes one’s Nikon or Canon lens from the camera body, attaches the AstroScope to the camera body, re-attaches the lens to the front of the AstroScope and when the Nikon/Canon camera powers up, the AstroScope’s internal MX1016 image tube receives power direct from the camera mount and one has a pretty seamless NV camera setup.
These AstroScope units have been showing up on eBay for a while now. I recently scored a used unit without an image tube. The parts that I got were: 1) A Nikon BBA (back body adapter) complete with an internal relay lens, 2) A Nikon FLA (front lens adapter), 3) and an empty CIU module (central intensifier unit - this is a two-piece shell that holds an MX10160 image tube. The CIU has electrical contacts that pass camera connections from the BBA thu the CIU (and into the image tube) and then onto the FLA (for a front AF camera lens). I later purchased a c-mount FLA direct from SofraDir for using c-mount lenses and telescope attachments on the front of the AstroScope.
MY CIU shell came with a small voltage regulator chip that takes the camera body voltage and squeezes it down to 3 volts for image intensifier input.
It seems that the factory normally solders this voltage reg direct to the image tube electrical contact pad(s), but I’ve never liked that idea, so I redid the wiring in my CIU by adding a pair of EMI shield spring finger contacts (like the contacts included in many other NV units) so that I can simply slide my image tube into the CIU shell without soldering the tube to the wiring.
So what’s the thing that you don’t see every day? Well since a company called Vello recently introduced an E-mount adapter that works with certain Nikon AF lenses, I got the crazy idea to connect my AstroScope unit to my Sony Alpha 7 camera using this Vello AF adaptor. The Vello unit passes power from the Alpha camera body into the Nikon BBA electrical contacts straight to the image tube tucked away in its CIU shell.
I did some quick test videos (night sky star fields) of the image quality and image scale produced by the BBA’s internal relay lens,
and the images look quite sharp. At least as sharp as what I have seen from some of my other relay lens setups with other NV housings.
Here's a full-frame real-time NV video sample.
and an APS-C crop NV video sample.
Just thought I would share…
