****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Just got the camera a few days ago. Included everything advertised including a video capture device I was not expecting. It seem sturdy and well made. I connected the battery the first night and charged it a full night with the battery power switch ON. I do not recommend connecting the camera and monitor to the battery while charging as the camera will power up and this could sap some of the energy needed to charge the battery. The charger is not meant to power the equipment, only charge the battery. The next day I checked the battery out connecting the camera and monitor to it . After connecting the equipment to the charged battery, I had no problem powering up the camera and the monitor. When you first power up the camera, you will not see any images on the monitor. the monitor will tell you if a signal is not being received from the camera. When the monitor is first powered on it may say no signal, but that should disappear promptly. I used the hand controller for the camera and was able to bring up the menu. Even though the menus are not extensive, I would recommend reading the "HOW DO I" section on the Revolution Image website before you start playing with the settings. I found the menus to be fairly simple once I did some reading. I did an initial test during the daytime with my Celestron Nextar 102 SLT. If you connect the camera to your telescope and try focusing without making some adjustments in the menu first, you may find that there is no way to focus. I went into the menu and selected SCENE SELECT CUSTOM. With SCENE SELECT CUSTOM highlighted, I pressed the center button on the remote control. At this point a new menu appeared with SHUTTER/AGC at the top. I used the left/right arrows on the hand control to set this to AUTO. I did not remove the diagonal mirror from my scope, but simply replaced the eyepiece with the camera. Depending on your scope you may need to remove the diagonal mirror place the camera directly into the focusing tube to obtain focus. Some scopes may even require extension to the focal path in order to focus. I was able to quickly focus the camera on an object about 1/4 mile away. If you have trouble focusing, remember that the problem is not with the camera. Do a little reading and you can get it to focus. I used a pencil to mark the focus point for the camera on the telescopes focus tube. This put me in the ball park and made it much quicker when I went out at night to achieve focus. I went out tonight to try the camera. I went out right after sunset and was able to quickly focus on a star. Remember, the settings needed to focus on a star are different than those I mentioned for daylight. Before you try focusing at night, go to the Imager website and refer to the how to section/ focusing. Use their recommended settings before you try to focus at night. Unfortunately, clouds started rolling in and I bumped my scope causing the tracking to be off. I was able to view some very dim stars on the monitor proving the camera sensitivity, before the clouds ended viewing. I did not have enough time to realign my scope and it was FREEZING. Bottom line is I know the camera is working and is very sensitive. I will wait for a warmer clear night and try to capture some images to upload and edit this review. The cables seems to have been extended since some earlier reviews. I tested the Video capture device on my windows 10 laptop. After installing the software that comes on the CD, It worked and was identified by SharpCap as a video input device. The Video cable is a coaxial cable with BNC connector on the camera end and a RCA connector on the other. During my COLD night out the cable was fairly stiff. I am going to by a BNC to RCA adapter for the camera $5, and use a thin RCA video cable instead. I believe this will solve that problem. Bottom line I am very impressed with what I got for $300. I took my first look at m42, did not bother to align scope and track, and settings were not optimum. it would have looked much better if I had connected the laptop to the camera. Got a lot of glare from my phone camera. Anyway it is much better than what i am used to seeing through an eyepiece.
