3 ms·

There's plenty of pictures of the camera and more info at the linked site: https://www.x20.org/color-night-vision/ https://www.x20.org/color-night-vision/

jacquesm 10y ago
What an amazingly small package. Thank you, I totally missed the link. So, if I get this right this uses residual light from the stars and other sources to do the imaging, and judging by the speed of the update it's doing that with so short an exposure that you'd never even realize that if it wasn't mentioned. That's one hell of a sensor, and probably quite a bit of on-board post-processing. There is a starlight video on that page: https://youtu.be/RbD9E6YyLbA https://youtu.be/RbD9E6YyLbA
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  I'd like to see that filmed under a really dark sky. There was a lot of skyglow in there that interfered with the capture. But even so, I thought I recognized Orion, with the Great Nebula clearly visible at 0:30 (the linear series of smudges of light below the 3 bright stars sitting in a straight diagonal line) You can see that nebula with the naked eye, but you need a pretty dark sky. I'm pretty sure it was not naked-eye-visible under that sky. Awesome camera.
- cr0sh 10y ago
  They also mention something about the CCD being "large pixel pitch" or something to that nature, to gather more light per imaging element. This would explain the size of the camera, because we know that a 10 mega-pixel camera can be small enough for a phone. Make the pixels much bigger, and the whole array much larger (instead of something the size of a pencil eraser, for instance, make it many times larger - perhaps 400mm per side or something).
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    It's not that big actually: https://www.x20.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/true-color-night-vision-module-camera-1024x556.jpg https://www.x20.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/true-color-ni... Maybe 6" horizontal and 4" vertical and the sensor smaller than that. https://www.x20.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_0041.jpg https://www.x20.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_0041.jpg Judging by the pitch of the pads at the bottom that's about 2" wide and 1.5" tall.
    - Gravityloss 10y ago
      They mention it's large format so over 100 mm sensor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_format https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_format
      - frostburg 10y ago
        It's not actually large format. Fabrication would be impossibly expensive.
        Gravityloss 10y ago
        You could have multiple 35 mm format sensors, a 3x3 grid for example.
Larrikin 10y ago
My biggest question after seeing that video is what use is SWIR?
- ygra 10y ago
  I'd guess the manufacturer sued and made them edit out the imagery in those segments.
- jsjohnst 10y ago
  Mentioned elsewhere, but it was stated that SWIR was likely not setup correctly. Many of the examples I've seen online since were not "low light", but "partially obscured" (aka smoke), so it might not be targeted for extreme low light settings (not looked to see, so I very likely could be wrong).
tripzilch 10y ago
... X20? Hmmm that brings memories of another camera business called X10 ... remember those? They sold tiny wireless spy cameras or something, but most famously, were at one point almost synonymous with "Internet banner ads". I remember a song "We must destroy X10!", which was protesting against the rising ubiquitousness of Internet banner ads (in general, although the X10 ads really were everywhere back then).

jacquesm 10y ago

What an amazingly small package. Thank you, I totally missed the link. So, if I get this right this uses residual light from the stars and other sources to do the imaging, and judging by the speed of the update it's doing that with so short an exposure that you'd never even realize that if it wasn't mentioned. That's one hell of a sensor, and probably quite a bit of on-board post-processing. There is a starlight video on that page: https://youtu.be/RbD9E6YyLbA https://youtu.be/RbD9E6YyLbA

Florin_Andrei 10y ago
I'd like to see that filmed under a really dark sky. There was a lot of skyglow in there that interfered with the capture. But even so, I thought I recognized Orion, with the Great Nebula clearly visible at 0:30 (the linear series of smudges of light below the 3 bright stars sitting in a straight diagonal line) You can see that nebula with the naked eye, but you need a pretty dark sky. I'm pretty sure it was not naked-eye-visible under that sky. Awesome camera.
cr0sh 10y ago
They also mention something about the CCD being "large pixel pitch" or something to that nature, to gather more light per imaging element. This would explain the size of the camera, because we know that a 10 mega-pixel camera can be small enough for a phone. Make the pixels much bigger, and the whole array much larger (instead of something the size of a pencil eraser, for instance, make it many times larger - perhaps 400mm per side or something).
- jacquesm 10y ago
  It's not that big actually: https://www.x20.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/true-color-night-vision-module-camera-1024x556.jpg https://www.x20.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/true-color-ni... Maybe 6" horizontal and 4" vertical and the sensor smaller than that. https://www.x20.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_0041.jpg https://www.x20.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_0041.jpg Judging by the pitch of the pads at the bottom that's about 2" wide and 1.5" tall.
  - Gravityloss 10y ago
    They mention it's large format so over 100 mm sensor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_format https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_format
    - frostburg 10y ago
      It's not actually large format. Fabrication would be impossibly expensive.
      - Gravityloss 10y ago
        You could have multiple 35 mm format sensors, a 3x3 grid for example.

Larrikin 10y ago

My biggest question after seeing that video is what use is SWIR?

ygra 10y ago
I'd guess the manufacturer sued and made them edit out the imagery in those segments.
jsjohnst 10y ago
Mentioned elsewhere, but it was stated that SWIR was likely not setup correctly. Many of the examples I've seen online since were not "low light", but "partially obscured" (aka smoke), so it might not be targeted for extreme low light settings (not looked to see, so I very likely could be wrong).

tripzilch 10y ago

... X20? Hmmm that brings memories of another camera business called X10 ... remember those? They sold tiny wireless spy cameras or something, but most famously, were at one point almost synonymous with "Internet banner ads". I remember a song "We must destroy X10!", which was protesting against the rising ubiquitousness of Internet banner ads (in general, although the X10 ads really were everywhere back then).