unused sony mavica camera

[Astro Arthur]

I have an old sony mavica that takes the 3.5inch floppy disc.

The camera has no resale value and i am considering sacrificing it and stripping out ccd chip etc. for use as an autoguider camera.

does anybody have any ideas for circuit diagrams etc or do you think i am wasting my time and a reasonsble camera??

astro arthur

[Airconvent]

wow...that camera does bring back fond memories.
However, if memory serves, its image quality is 640x480 and quite bad by today's standards. (there was a later versions with 1.3MP which wasn't that much better).

Images taken indoors without a flash were terrible, so I'm not sure if its any use for capturing faint objects.
I think you are better off keeping it as memento (or donate it to the local museum!) or letting your kids play with it.

I think its better to go for a more current-generation ccd found in the latest webcams instead..

[aquillae]

wow, it indeed brings back fond memories:)

my first astrophotos (jup, saturn, moon) were taken using my old Mavica FD73 =) with eyepiece projection method, until i found out that I could get better result using webcam.

IMHO, the sensitivity of the Mavica is really poor for dim objects and it's not worth to hassle with it.

[Astro Arthur]

Thankyou for your replies.

I think that I may totally discard the thought of doing anything heroic with the camera and let if collect dust in the box where it is.

One day in the future somebody may need a paperweight of it's exact dimensions

Astro Arthur