What is this new product announcement called SmartEye? Is this some form of color night vision with ability to act as a camera??
https://pegasusastro...WAmNvvRSyezJ8uM
Posted 15 April 2024 - 09:03 AM
What is this new product announcement called SmartEye? Is this some form of color night vision with ability to act as a camera??
https://pegasusastro...WAmNvvRSyezJ8uM
Posted 15 April 2024 - 09:07 AM
What is this new product announcement called SmartEye? Is this some form of color night vision with ability to act as a camera??
Looks more related to an EAA device than NV since it has a sensor at the bottom.
Posted 15 April 2024 - 12:05 PM
It has an IMX533 chip, the same chip used in the ASI 533 MC. It is a camera and looks like it has an onboard display so you can see the image much like you are looking through a regular eyepiece. It is not night vision. Since it does live stacking it really is very close to an EAA device as Doug said.
There is an ongoing discussion on this device on Cloudynights:
https://www.cloudyni...ronic-eyepiece/
Brian
Posted 17 April 2024 - 06:12 AM
My understanding is that the SmartEye is basically a camera that sends the data to a small screen that you view just like looking into a regular eyepiece. However, the images buildup "over time". So, you can wait for the final image or you can watch it live stack images and see more and more details emerge.
I did EAA for 15-years and it was great fun. I started back in 2000 with a device from SBIG called the STV. The STV does all the same things that the SmartEye does, like track and accumulate images, except the images were B&W only and the camera was separate from the large, self-contained computer and screen. Now all of that same capability can fit into a device the size of an eyepiece. And data can also be sent to a phone.
You will need some kind of decent tracking.
The image is of an old STV. It was many times the size of the SmartEye and had multiple components but with the STV's track and accumulate technology, you could also watch the image buildup and more and more details emerge over time.
Bob
Posted 17 April 2024 - 09:12 PM
So, you can wait for the final image or you can watch it live stack images and see more and more details emerge.
Which means your telescope has to be on a tracking mount. I mainly use a non-tracking Alt/Az mount at home, so this is probably not for me.
Posted 18 April 2024 - 06:21 AM
Which means your telescope has to be on a tracking mount. I mainly use a non-tracking Alt/Az mount at home, so this is probably not for me.
Yes. That's one of the advantages of NV. It's real-time. To be fair, watching images build up on the STV screen was very cool. Would I want to do that while looking "into" an eyepiece – don't know.
Another advantage of NV is that it just feels like visual observing. The ergonomics of EAA felt like imaging. I'm not sure where the SmartEye falls but if you have to wait for images, it will probably feel like imaging. If a digital/camera approach ever becomes real-time then that will be a true competitor to NV.
Bob
Posted 18 April 2024 - 01:55 PM
Yes. That's one of the advantages of NV. It's real-time. To be fair, watching images build up on the STV screen was very cool. Would I want to do that while looking "into" an eyepiece – don't know.
Another advantage of NV is that it just feels like visual observing. The ergonomics of EAA felt like imaging. I'm not sure where the SmartEye falls but if you have to wait for images, it will probably feel like imaging. If a digital/camera approach ever becomes real-time then that will be a true competitor to NV.
Bob
In that small of a package, real time would be probably be wishful thinking for a while. With a (admittedly a tad old) pc and a similar camera, the fastest I could live stack (via averaging, not even sigma clipping) was around 600ms per frame, which is fine, but like, not competing with real time observation. And, the lower you expose, the worse your image is gonna be. Added on to all that, the 533 only does just a bit over 20fps full res, so that's a hard cap for the smart eye.
Edited by topcode, 18 April 2024 - 01:57 PM.
Posted 18 April 2024 - 02:26 PM
Posted 21 April 2024 - 09:55 AM
According to a FB post this device will be $1500.
Posted 21 April 2024 - 10:57 AM
Yes. That's one of the advantages of NV. It's real-time. To be fair, watching images build up on the STV screen was very cool. Would I want to do that while looking "into" an eyepiece – don't know.
Another advantage of NV is that it just feels like visual observing. The ergonomics of EAA felt like imaging. I'm not sure where the SmartEye falls but if you have to wait for images, it will probably feel like imaging. If a digital/camera approach ever becomes real-time then that will be a true competitor to NV.
Bob
I still have an STV somewhere but haven't done that in years. It was very cool. I just might have to try that again.
Posted 22 April 2024 - 06:22 AM
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