Revolution Imager R2 CCD video astronomy camera

A complete kit that grants live views of the cosmos – just add a telescope

The Revolution Imager R2 is a complete camera and monitor kit that allows you examine the view through your telescope on screen and in real time. With it, you can view details that would be impossible to see with an eyepiece alone. It is often said that when looking through a telescope eyepiece you can be disappointed, that you can only faintly make out most nebulae and that what you can see is not very colourful. This camera kit makes it possible to see details in many of these nebulae, and to see them in full colour via a live view on a screen. The view on the monitor is displayed with astounding colour and clarity and for clubs, outreach or star parties this will certainly be a winner.

The Revolution Imager comes in a soft case that includes the camera, a 12V rechargeable battery plus charger, a 7-inch colour monitor with an adjustable stand and a number of accessories – a 1.25-inch nosepiece, a 0.5x focal reducer and a 1.25-inch infrared-cut filter. There are also separate remote controls for the camera and the monitor, and all the cables needed to connect everything together. This is an exceptionally comprehensive package that includes everything needed to get imaging straight out of the box.

Although all these items are included, there are several valuable accessories available that were loaned to us for the purpose of this review. These included a number of lenses that attach directly to the camera (allowing you to use the camera as a standalone device), longer connecting cables and a video capture device so you can save images directly onto a computer via a USB connection. Note that you cannot save the video that the camera records without a capture card of some kind.

To approximate the field of view of the camera’s 1/3-inch Sony ICX811 sensor with your telescope, we recommend consulting our online field of view calculator (www.skyatnightmagazine.com/

astronomy-field-view-calculator). Select your telescope and manually enter the pixel size (5µm) and the image size (720x576), then select a target from the available lists to approximate the view you will see when using the camera.

Pleasant surprises

The TFT monitor is surprisingly sharp and its colour rendition is excellent. It is worth making some adjustments to the brightness and contrast settings using the camera remote, as the default settings for deep-sky viewing are not optimal out