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ATM [Fwd: Re: Astro Imaging Nomenclature]

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Mel Bartels wrote:
> 
> The wording that a number of us here in the pacific northwest part of
> the US have been using is 'astro-imaging' or 'imaging' for short.  So,
> we have 'visual astro-imaging' or visual imaging', 'astrophotography' or
> 'film imaging', and 'ccd imaging'.
> 
> Sound good?
> 
> --
> Clear skies, Mel Bartels    Programmer/Analyst, and amateur astronomer
> atm, atm-digest list-owner  mailto:mbartels@efn.org
> homepage: http://www.efn.org/~mbartels
> Motorize A Dob: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~mbartels/altaz/altaz.html
Hi Mel:

I haven't figured out how to post a broadcast response to the ATM Pages
yet (using Netscape), so I'm sending this (I think) back to you.

This discussion is intriguing to me. For about 12 years now (since ca.
Halley's Comet) I have been doing what I have preferred to call
"real-time" astrovideo; i.e., making _live_ television astronomical
images, displayed (typically at public star parties, etc.) and/or
recorded on tape (VHS or S-VHS).  The *nomenclature* problem stems from
the now-prevalent use of the term "CCDs", which are typically used
mostly to do static or time-exposed imaging (known as "integration" in
the electronics industry).
However, not _all_ TV cameras are CCDs (one of the best I use for the
Moon is an older JVC colorstripe tube camera with a removable lens --
has great contrast and captures a large range of light values), but the
general public and many amateur astrophotographers/imagers usually now
equate TV with CCDs.  Some younger people at public star parties have
even refused to believe the live TV images weren't being sent in from
someplace else, or were being played back from tape, until the telescope
is rocked, moving the image.  Now most of this work is done on solar
system objects (such as timing occultations and recording solar and
lunar eclipses) but with an intensifier, even some (limited) deep-sky
work can be done *live*.  So what do we call live, real-time (30
exposures per second) electronic imaging of astronomical objects??  Am I
a practicing astrovideographer?  What then are people who make their
video exposures one at a time?

For more information, see my article, "Astrovideo Techniques For The
Amateur Astronomer", published in the Proceedings of the EOA3, (Third
Electronic Astronomy Conference, Chapman College, Orange, CA, March
17,1990), by OCA Publications, J. Sanford, Editor.

Gene Lucas

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