Why video astronomy? And what the heck is it, really?

February 4 - "When is video not video?" That was a recent question raised on the Yahoo Group. Video Astro, with this post. It's a good question and technically the answer is not at all clear. Essentially there are at least two basic types of video astronomy going on. First, there are the efforts that took hold inrecent years with modified "web cams." These use video to take many pictures each second of the moon or planets in the hope that a few of those pictures will be exceptionally sharp because the atmosphere was steady for that pne moment. What you see on the monitor while doing this is not exciting at all - it's a picture of the planet that is no better - or not much better - than you would see with your eye. The whole emphasis of this approach is to record the results and let the computer sort them out at a later time. It results in absolutely stunning images when done correctly.

I've dabbled in this approach, but my main focus is on something called "integrating video." This is much like time-exposure photography. Essentially you take what for all practical purposes is a sitll picture for a set time - 2, 6, or 12 seconds in my case. Then the camera sends out "live" video to the monitor of this still picture. After 2, 6, or 12 seconds - your choice - the picture on the monitor is refreshed with a new version of what was captured in the most recent time segment. This is greaton deep sky objects such as nebula and galaxies and the results - live on screen - are absolutely stunning. Suddenly you are seeing these objects in ways that resemble the still photographs you have seen in books. But people doing this kind of video also record the results, then use the computer to process them - and some people put a lot of emphasis on this processing - producing a finished image is their goal. I do a little of that, but my real goal is the live experience. Here's my post to the group - my attempt to explain what video astronomy is for me:

Fascinating discussion. I've been doing video for just a couple years with a MallinCam and I've often wondered about all the emphasis on post processing, but never seen any discussion of it.

I have just about zero interest in post processing. I got into video - and continue to enjoy it immensely - for one reason: The live experience.

For me the wonderful world of astronomical imaging - what's produced by everything from backyard scopes to the Hubble Space Telescope - adds several layers of technology and abstraction between us and our subject matter. I don't mean to put down imaging - just to say that it's different to me than the live experience of having eons-old photons ping our brains directly. (Or indirectly after being collected by a large chunk of refracting or reflecting glass. )

At heart I guess I remain a visual observer. My love for astronomy started ages ago when I read that astronomers actually rode inside the 200-inch scope on Mount Palomar. I'm not sure this is true - but to my 10-year-old mind the idea of a learned scientists getting into an observing cage at the high end of a telescope, then sitting there in the cold and dark as the scope reached out millions of light years into the universe, really struck a chord with me.

That chord continues to resonate every time I go out into the night. And that's the key. I want to be out in the night and I don't want to lose contact with that dark void above me with its thousands of pinpoints of light - nuclear campfires dancing to the tune of our turbulent atmosphere. I want to feel the wind of Earth on my cheek, hear the screech owl - look out in winter through the bare trees at the starlight glimmering off the river far below me. I want to see the distant house lights go off one at a time as the tumultuous world of our human race goes on "paose" - and I want the night to close in on me so that my world gets channeled into the telescope and my focus sharpens until all there is is me and the telescope and the cosmos. Subjective? You bet. Romantic? Yep. Dreamer - uh huh. Guilty of all those things.

But all the images I see tell me there's a way to see more. There's a way to make the scant information gathered from faint fuzzies mean more - to make more sense out of what I see - to understand it better. But when I sit inside and look at a book, or the computer screen, I enter a different world. I lose sight of the bigger picture. I relate to and interact with the images or the computer screen - and I lose something of their meaning - the deeper connection.

Video astronomy is a way, for me, of reconciling - of bringing together - these two experiences. Of allowing me to look deeper into the universe and see it better - see more datail - gather more information - while still feeling the wind on my cheek and hearing the voice of the owl. Yes, the monitor tends to mesmerize me in such situations - but I find I still can make a direct connection with the images on the screen. I can see the wires going from the monitor to the video camera, perched in the eyepiece of my telescope. I can see where the telescope is poinitng and even though the monitor has dimmed my night vision, it hasn't had nearly yjr adverse impact that I thought it would - I can still see many of those flickering "nuclear campfires" we call the stars - I can still make the cosmic connections that are to me so important.

So while I sometimes capture images as reminders of the experience - and to share with others - my goal remains the live experience and video - especially integrating video cameras as opposed to Web cams - gives me that live experience.

It also does one other things. It makes sharing this live experience with visitors much, much easier. I've been in this hobby for half a century, off-and-on. But I've had the most fun - gotten the deepest joy - out of sharing the experience with others, something I didn't start to seriously do until the past few years. Video enhances my attempts at astornomy education and outreach - at helping others to see the universe and to experience something of what I experience.

Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to define the subject here -and certainly not trying to limit discussion on this forum. I appreciate that video astronomy means different things to different people. This is simply what it means to me.