Sony Cybershot

Hi all,

On a whim I bought a Sony Cybershot p93 whilst in Singapore the other
day. Well, you have to... don't you? This was intended just for
holiday snaps and stuff. Reading through the manual, though, I
discovered it can take shots of up to 30 seconds exposure - and it
does some kind of 'Noise Reduction' processing on the image. Neat.

So I took it out into the garden that night, laid it flat on it's back
and took a few shots.

Impressive results - it was picking up stars down to about mag 6 (and
this is in light polluted West London). I took some 5M pixel shots of
Hercules and it even managed to detect M13.

It takes about 20 seconds to do the processing after the image has
been captured - I guess it's doing some kind of dark frame subtraction
or something. Or perhaps there's a cut down version of Registax in
there!

Clever little camera. Now I've got the idea in my head of hooking it
up to the scope - but how to attach it? It has one of those 'pop out'
lenses that I could clamp to but it also has an auto power off which
folds it back up (and I can't seem to disable this feature). Wouldn't
want it trying to close the lense whilst clamped in the telescope.

Any ideas? Anybody else got one of these things?

Jeremy

"Jeremy Taylor" wrote in message
om...
Hi all,

On a whim I bought a Sony Cybershot p93 whilst in Singapore the other
day. Well, you have to... don't you? This was intended just for
holiday snaps and stuff. Reading through the manual, though, I
discovered it can take shots of up to 30 seconds exposure - and it
does some kind of 'Noise Reduction' processing on the image. Neat.

So I took it out into the garden that night, laid it flat on it's back
and took a few shots.

Impressive results - it was picking up stars down to about mag 6 (and
this is in light polluted West London). I took some 5M pixel shots of
Hercules and it even managed to detect M13.

It takes about 20 seconds to do the processing after the image has
been captured - I guess it's doing some kind of dark frame subtraction
or something. Or perhaps there's a cut down version of Registax in
there!

Clever little camera. Now I've got the idea in my head of hooking it
up to the scope - but how to attach it? It has one of those 'pop out'
lenses that I could clamp to but it also has an auto power off which
folds it back up (and I can't seem to disable this feature). Wouldn't
want it trying to close the lense whilst clamped in the telescope.

Any ideas? Anybody else got one of these things?

Jeremy

I purchased a mounting kit for my digital camera that allowed me to connect
it to the back of the scope and focus on the eyepiece. As for the power off
thing. Does it stay on if plugged into the mains (if it can be)

Normally the power off time can be adjusted so as long as you fiddle with
something on the camera it should stay on.

One other suggestion, use the self timer to trigger the camera when attached
to the camera (unless you have a wireless reomte) that will allow any
vibration to die off before the camera shutter fires.

Martin

My Sony F717 also has auto-power off but this is disabled when I plug an AV
cable into the cameras AV-out socket and plug the other end into a TV or USB
video capture device. I assume it requires a load at the other end of the
phono cable so the camera can detect a current flow and keeps the camera on.
I'll give it a try without being plugged into a TV to see if just having a
cable plugged in is enough.

I *think* having the power adapter plugged in also disabled the auto power
off.

For shots longer than something like 1/20th (I forget the exact time) it
does auto-noise reduction/darkframing. The time taken to do this dark frame
is exactly the same as the exposure length. Which means my 30 second
exposures actually take 1 minute (30secs exposure + 30 secs darkframing).
It does this for very single shot which is a tad annoying as it reduces the
number of shots I can take by 50%. But it's still a nice feature to have
even if you can't turn it off.

Regards,
Ed.

(Jeremy Taylor) wrote in message . com...

Clever little camera. Now I've got the idea in my head of hooking it
up to the scope - but how to attach it? It has one of those 'pop out'
lenses that I could clamp to but it also has an auto power off which
folds it back up (and I can't seem to disable this feature). Wouldn't
want it trying to close the lense whilst clamped in the telescope.

My P71 has "Power-saving Off" in the menu which stops the lens moving.
I can't imagine they would have left it out on the P93. Otherwise the
lens is simply too vulnerable.

There are universal camera mounts available at a price.

I'm looking at a couple of DIY clamping rings to fit over my 2"
focusser extension tube. With a metal strip & screw to support the
camera by the tripod bush as usual. With a reflector you haven't got
that easy option due to a lack of space on the focussing mount.

I do wish they'd put a cable release fitting on these cameras.

Until your get properly organised just try handheld to the eyepiece
rubber cup. A 15mm Meade 4000 works a treat if you have a steady
mounting, a steady hand and don't push the power too high with
Barlows. It can be quite addictive capturing the Moon & planets this
way! :-)

Chris.B

On 25 May 2004 06:18:19 -0700, (Jeremy Taylor)
wrote:

Hi all,

On a whim I bought a Sony Cybershot p93 whilst in Singapore the other
day.
So I took it out into the garden that night, laid it flat on it's back
and took a few shots.

Impressive results - it was picking up stars down to about mag 6 (and
this is in light polluted West London). I took some 5M pixel shots of
Hercules and it even managed to detect M13.

Jeremy

It's lens aperture that counts with point-like star images not f/ratio

as in regular photography.

You can take good star pic [as you describe] but go much fainter by
using the full zoom [not digital zoom!] in 30s exposures. Co-adding
exposures via PaintShop Pro etc will increase penetration or by
'averaging' smooth grainy results at high 400-800 ISO rating.

However stars will trail in these telephoto settings with a static
camera so needs piggybacking on a driven mount like a Scotch Mount.

I get to mag 10 with my Minolta D7 at
http://home.freeuk.com/m.gavin/digsky2.htm
see also Terry Platt's astro Cybershots at
http://home.freeuk.com/m.gavin/digsky3.htm