Aurora observed with a Runcam Night Eagle 3 (2): 07/10/2024, around 22H00 (UTC+3) : Saariselkä (FI)

[@uscybercom6009]

Hey, bro i want to know why the footage is so grany i have seen your other videos too of RNE3 of airplane and stars capture, i want to do ufo hunting and this seems perfect But why footage is grainy? And can i know what are you using for magnification?

[@thenightvisionlab]

Hi uscybercom6009. Yes indeed, it is grainy: the camera belongs to a range of low cost, but very sensitive camera. It provides a "simple" analogique PAL/NTSC video signal. More specifically, when the average image luminosity level becomes very low, the AGC is cranking up and the resulting used gain is very high, which involves an increasing about the image background noise. Cooling the sensor would help to reduce, at least, the thermal noise. For your UFO hunting purpose, it would be just fine as a reasonably low cost video detection and capture solution. For the magnification, it would depend on the focal length of the objective lens ins relation with the sensor size: in my case, for this video, it is a CCTV zoom lens 3-5-8mm/1.4. But you can use whatever suits to you as long as it is a fast lens and it provides a sufficient field of view: for instance a 6mm/0.8 from Computar would be a great option for you...Thank you for your question! Best regards.

[@uscybercom6009]

@@thenightvisionlab I am very new to all this, I have celestron G2 10x50 binoculars, can I attach RNE3 to it? Will it be grainy then too?

[@thenightvisionlab]

@@uscybercom6009 , you could adapt a RNE3 to one half of your binocular, but you would have to use an additional lens (with a short focal length, few mm for instance) located between the original eyepiece of this binocular's half, and the RNE3's sensor. You may use the ojective lens directly provided with the RNE3 package also: adjust your binocular to infinite and settle the camera with its lens also adjusted to infinite, behind the celestron eyepiece. Keyword: digiscopy, afocal mounting. If the resulting F/# of this assembly is sufficiently low, the equivalent optical system may be very fast and you would have a less grainy image, for a given luminosity level, becaue the AGC would not have to be so highly cranked up. Just thoughts for food. take a look here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ioiyhnZ4or-Mfbs and also here kzbin.info/www/bejne/kGq4dYB_adtggaM for illustrating the afocal principle.