753 replies to this topic

[Rickster]

Continued from https://www.cloudyni...mera/?p=9984354

 

The SV305 is a relatively new and inexpensive camera offering from SVBONY.  It is based on the IMX290 color camera and is compatible with Sharpcap.  We have been exploring potential applications of this camera over on the EAA forum, and we have reached the point that any meaningful discussion from here needs pics.  But the EAA forum rules forbid posting images in non-observational discussions.  Hence the need to start this thread.  Hoping such threads are welcome here.  Probably should have been here to start with.

[Stargazer3236]

After reading all the notes and comments on the previous thread, I am tempted to buy this camera. I already have a dedicated planetary cam, the Neximage 5 and a dedicated DSO cam, the ASI294MC, but I would like something I could use for an E-Finder too. I will perchance buy a 50mm finder to use with the SvBony 305.

[ww321q]

I just ordered one. Should be here in a couple days. Then the learning curve starts. lol. Hopefully I'll get better pics than with my cellphone. I observe the moon and planets mostly. 

[dciobota]

Btw, for those of you interested, SVBONY now have a directshow driver for the SV305.  What this means for Windows users is now in addition to the newer versions of Sharpcap, you can also use it with older versions (tested with 2.9) as well as other 3rd party apps like AmCap that support DirectShow.

 

Also for developers, I have successfully tested the camera with some Python code off the net:

https://github.com/bunkahle/pygrabber

 

I am slightly modifying that library to be able to get and set camera properties programmatically.

 

One caveat, I have tried it with PHD2, and it crashes.  I'm suspecting something to do with WDM support, but I won't be looking into that for sometime.  I wish PHD2 supported DirectShow rather than that old model.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cloaking device back on.

[Dob250]

hi

I'm French and I did a detailed test of this camera.

1 / flow test

Results (to be validated)

In planetary the number of FPS and primordial, to have good results it is necessary to work in RAW 8 car in RAW12 the FPS fall really too much, according to what I saw that has no importance in planetary (to be confirmed!!).

So in RAW 8

in 1920X1080: 21.5 FPS

in 1280X1024: 34,4 FPS

in 800X608: 98 FPS (finally FPS for planetary)

in 640X480: 130,4 FPS

in 320X240: 130,7 FPS

130.7 max!

2 / fullwell

test to the analysis of the sharpness sensor

The sensor is based on IMX290 but I think it is not improved by svbony.
Compared to the IMX 224 there is a big difference in fullwell, the imx290 is given at more than 15000

Curious by the way, the reduction of red noise compared to gain in the form of RN = 15.4 * GV
So for readnoise = 1 the gain is equal to 15,37
So for this camera

SVbony SV 305 Passive Color Camera SVbony SV 305 Buffer 2.9 micron 256 MB QE 68.4% Noise 3.4 approx. Full Well 889 approx.

Small full well 889 in the cabbage (imx 224  4800 full well ! ), QE a little low, dynamic range a little low
All that if I understood your smile.gif subjects correctly.
This camera will be pretty good in planetarium (it's better to have a motorized usb 2 car scope) but in VA it's too light even if you can already start: eyes closed:

 

Gain Value e / ADU Read Noise (e) Full Well (e) Relative Gain Rel. Gain (db) Plage dynamique (arrêts)

1 53,51718504 15,41294929 13700,39937 1 0 8

1 53,49988682 15,4079674 13695,97103 1,000323332 0,002807972 8

1 53,2706365 15,34194331 13637,28294 1,004628226 0,040107519 8

1 53,24938755 15,33582362 13631,84321 1,005029119 0,043572895 8

2 26,30033128 7,574495409 6732,884808 2,034848325 6,170640859 8

3 18,00270287 5,184778427 4608,691935 2,972730563 9,463110964 8

3 17,99257615 5,181861932 4606,099495 2,974403698 9,467998248 8

5 10,687864 3,078104832 2736,093184 5,007285369 13,99204686 8

6 8,996134626 2,590886772 2303,010464 5,948908867 15,48874632 8

7 7,585126959 2,184516564 1941,792502 7,055542423 16,97060815 8

9 5,919660762 1,7048623 1515,433155 9,0405831 19,12392885 8

12 4,491903321 1,293668157 1149,92725 11,91414445 21,52125723 8

15 3,534253406 1,017864981 904,768872 15,14243007 23,60391153 8

19 2,786607465 0,80254295 713,3715112 19,20513948 25,66834931 8

25 2.087201755 0,601114105 534,3236493 25,6406382 28,17857661 8

29 1,840842201 0,530162554 471,2556033 29,07211983 29,269534 8

190 1,742364914 0,501801095 446,0454179 30,71525639 29,7470829 8

200 1,766410019 0,508726085 452,2009648 30,29714759 29,62803485 8

400 1,767016897 0,508900866 452,3563255 30,28674211 29,62505119 8

890 1,76654012 0,508763555 452,2342707 30,29491628 29,62739513 8

900 1,766020558 0,508613921 452,101263 30,30382902 29,62995014 8

 

3 / Picture: with orion XT8 I without motor

 

 

 

Bye

Edited by Dob250, 19 April 2020 - 03:50 AM.

[FiremanDan]

This is interesting. I have been thinking about getting a cheap color camera for EAA type stuff. Either at our club's star parties, or just doing live astronomy feeds. Also for some basic planetary work. I have also been considering getting a nicer OSC CMOS/CCD that I can use to supplement my 8in RC/80mm APO with the ASI1600.
A $150 camera, what a time to be alive!

[Dob250]

This is interesting. I have been thinking about getting a cheap color camera for EAA type stuff. Either at our club's star parties, or just doing live astronomy feeds. Also for some basic planetary work. I have also been considering getting a nicer OSC CMOS/CCD that I can use to supplement my 8in RC/80mm APO with the ASI1600.
A $150 camera, what a time to be alive!

The svbony is a good choice for you , i think 

[casati]

I'm testing the EAA waters with my SV305 and I'm impressed what technology has achieved in amateur astronomy over the last decades.

Here is one of my M51 taken shortly before Full Moon in Lower Bavaria, Germany 2020-07-06, 23-16-48 MESZ with AstroDMx and a Bresser Polaris 102/460 (accd. to Bresser the same optics as Dr. Wainwrights 102xs), mounted on Star Discovery mount,  in comparison to p.21 of Jack Newtons "Deep Sky Objects", 1977 shot with a 12,5 " Newton.

M51 stacked with Siril (siril.org) from 10 x 22 sec AstroDMx Capture exposures with 100% Gain. 

CS,
Peter

 

 

Edited by casati, 11 July 2020 - 04:39 AM.

[mrk671968]

Newbie here...

I have the SV305 and with limited testing it works great with Sharpcap.  The only issue I'm having is achieving good focus.  I have a F/5.5 90mm FL500mm refractor and I can't get it crisply focused.  On the refractor - I'm not sure of the correct terms but the SV305 appears to almost come to a focus when the focus tube is all the way retracted but to focus it appears to need to retract more - which is impossible.  I have tried it with a diagonal, directly in the back (no diagonal), directly in with extension tube, etc...

 

I feel like I'm doing something wrong.  It is one thing to not have enough back focus - you can add an extension.  But what if you need more front focus?

Edited by mrk671968, 13 July 2020 - 03:08 PM.

[mrk671968]

Got it!

[philinbris]

I also have the SV305 and have manage "reasonable" planetary and a "not too shabby" M104:

 

 

 

 

Remember - I am just a newbie - not trying to brag, just show whats possible with this camera.

Also I am really happy to be learning and achieving these sorts of images with a $200 Australian camera. It places very high expectations should I ever venture into the world of expensive cooled cameras.

Cheers

[mrk671968]

Awesome pics Phil!!!   I captured this image of Saturn last night with the SV305.  I chose raw8 rather than rgb24 and ended up with a monochrome pic? I may have processed it wrong?  I'm still happy with the pic.  I captured this with the SV305, sharpcap, and a Celestron 6" SCT and did 5000 frames at around 5ms per exposure, gain around 12.  I used a cheap Astroview mount and manually kept Saturn in the frame!

Edited by mrk671968, 14 July 2020 - 01:28 PM.

[philinbris]

I must try the 8bit captures. All of mine have been RGB24.

I am not sure about this, but I believe higher gain, whilst noisier, is better because the stacking will take car of a lot of the noise.

Higher gain, means lower / shorter exposure which means higher frame rate.

Also try to capture 3 to 5 minute vids, which should be in the order of 30,000 frames - that's the advice I have been given. It does mean stacking is a bit tedious.

Cheers

[mrk671968]

Used the SV305 to capture Jupiter.  Viewing conditions were good, dew was bad but thankfully shooting video I didn't have to be out too long to get the data.  Used my cheap Astroview mount with slomo manual controls, SV305, Celestron C6 XLT, Sharpcap and 8000 frames, RGB24, gain 21, exp 1.5ms.  I tried Phil's method he mentioned above of increasing the gain and reducing exposure time. 

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[philinbris]

Well I tried both 8 and 12 bit and I found the resultant images were undesirable, very pixel looking..

I could not process them easily and the stacks were frankly terrible.

I think I will stick to RGB24 and look at a dedicated mono cam at some point.

Cheers

[philinbris]

Used the SV305 to capture Jupiter.  Viewing conditions were good, dew was bad but thankfully shooting video I didn't have to be out too long to get the data.  Used my cheap Astroview mount with slomo manual controls, SV305, Celestron C6 XLT, Sharpcap and 8000 frames, RGB24, gain 21, exp 1.5ms.  I tried Phil's method he mentioned above of increasing the gain and reducing exposure time. 

That's a great image.

It surely must give newbies hope that the cheaper camera like SV305 is a good investment to start out with. Warning to those who happen to read this, my advice is don't cheap right out and get tempted with the SV105. I have one and it simply does not do the job any where as near as well as the SV305. So spend the extra $120 odd. I am not sure how the SV205 would fair - perhaps someone can comment?

I spent some time over the last couple nights taking heaps of captures of Jupiter and Saturn at various exposure and gain settings

I am still to finish looking at them all but so far I think higher gain and quicker exposure seems to win. Its a hard bullet to bite because when you see the high gain captures in SharpCap, they look "less nice" than the low gain ones. But SharpCap seems to deal with the noise very well and the resultant stack seems a fair bit better with high gain fast exposure than it does with low gain slow exposure.

I am yet to work out the optimum fame count / avi duration. I had heeded various advice that Jupiter needs 3 min avi and Saturn about 5 min (about 30,000 plus frames), however the quick 2000 frame captures seem just as good and take a lot lees to process. I am thinking lots of short captures is way better than one big long one.

Cheers

Phil

[ATM57]

"It surely must give newbies hope that the cheaper camera like SV305 is a good investment to start out with. Warning to those who happen to read this, my advice is don't cheap right out and get tempted with the SV105. I have one and it simply does not do the job any where as near as well as the SV305. So spend the extra $120 odd."

 

I have to disagree. The SV105 was my first lunar/planetary astrocamera and this is where I learned how to use both the camera and software (still learning). The pics included here were all produced with the SV105 and a C14.

 

The last pick of Jupiter was shot with a Sky-Watcher Evostar 150ED refractor.

 

Note: My SV105 works best for me at about F/20-F/30. My new SV305 arrived today. We shall see...

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Edited by ATM57, 05 August 2020 - 05:30 PM.

[philinbris]

"It surely must give newbies hope that the cheaper camera like SV305 is a good investment to start out with. Warning to those who happen to read this, my advice is don't cheap right out and get tempted with the SV105. I have one and it simply does not do the job any where as near as well as the SV305. So spend the extra $120 odd."

 

I have to disagree. The SV105 was my first lunar/planetary astrocamera and this is where I learned how to use both the camera and software (still learning). The pics included here were all produced with the SV105 and a C14.

 

mmm,

I tried the 105 with 2x and 3x Barlow in my F5 newt, did not think to try the 5x as I was too disappointed with the outcome. It does have relatively small pixels, so I will give it a crack wit 5x next time.

I am sure you will be happy with the 305.

Cheers

[ATM57]

First light (C14) with the Svbony SV305. The beginning of the learning curve has started. Seeing was soft @ about 3-5/10. Low pressure weather system directly overhead. I Hope to do much better in the near future.

 

C-14

Svbony SV305

200 frames

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Edited by ATM57, 07 August 2020 - 03:13 PM.

[philinbris]

I am sure you will.

There is so much to get right to just get reasonable images - I have a long way to go.

Cheers

[dlwmacgregor]

I had my first try with my new SVBONY SV305 last night.

First task was to see if it worked and it did. Then I viewed Jupiter.

Jupiter was an overexposed white blob. I made sure it was in focus but I could not see any detail.

I was using it inserted straight into my star diagonal - no Barlow.

Then I slewed over to Saturn and it came up as a green object and, as you can see, not much detail or definition.

I was using SmartCap 3.2.

 

I would appreciate any tips.

 

Thanks.

 

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[Luke_B]

I received my SV305 about a month ago, which is how long I've been attempting any astrophotography  So I'm still learning everything.  With my 8" dob (no tracking) this is the best of what I have so far.  

 

 

 

 

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[dlwmacgregor]

Wow those are great shots!

I'd love to get a shot of Jupiter like that second-to-last one.

Could you enlighten me on your settings in SharpCap for that one?

Last night was my fist night with my new SV305 and Jupiter looked more like a big white fuzzy blob.

Why do your first 3 have a greenish tinge to them? My image of Saturn last night was kind of greenish.

Edited by dlwmacgregor, 08 August 2020 - 12:26 PM.

[ATM57]

I'm hopefully flattening the learning curve on the SV305 while waiting for a night of good seeing. 

 

Celestron C-14
Svbony SV305 camera
200 frames captured
Seeing 5-6/10
SharpCap 3.2
Registax 6
Paint Shop Pro 2019
Sky-Watcher GoTo DOB mount (CPC14)

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Edited by ATM57, 08 August 2020 - 03:40 PM.

[ROursamajor]

Does it have ROI option? What is the maximum framerate using ROI?