The Tiny1 Astronomy Camera

[tinymos]

Hello everyone,

We are a Singaporean based startup that developed the Tiny1 - World's first Astronomy camera made Small, Smart and Social. Traditionally, astrophotography is an expensive hobby with a steep learning curve that may deter many from picking it up. We believe in making astronomy and astrophotography easy and accessible to all, which is why we made the Tiny1

You can find us at http://tinymos.com while the Tiny1's specifications can be found here: http://bit.ly/tiny1_specs. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to reply to this thread or email us at support@tinymos.com. We are more than happy to address them.

Let us grow the Astronomy community together. :)

Clear skies,
Team TinyMOS

[Lognic04]

Hi team tinymos,
About your camera: What is the lens specifications? How do you focus or is that auto/digitally controlled? Do you get to change exposure/iso for things like star trails?
Thanks! :thanx::thumbsup:

[tinymos]

Hi Logan,

About your camera: What is the lens specifications?

The camera supports CS mount lenses. It comes with a 4mm F1.2 wide angle lens, equivalent to 28mm FOV on Full Frame DSLR

How do you focus or is that auto/digitally controlled?

The lenses are manually focused. Sadly autofocus doesn't work for stars/DSO etc. We will build in a FWHM calculation tool to determine focus quality. We may have a point to bright star to assist the user to find a bright object to check focus on.

Do you get to change exposure/iso for things like star trails?

Yes you can have manual overrides to the capture presets if you're a pro user.

Hope this helps!
Team TinyMOS

[trent_julie]

Hi Team,
I have seen the video for this project. Good luck it seems like an interesting endeavour!

Trent

[tinymos]

Hello trent_julie,

Thank you so much for your kind words. We are working hard to bring astrophotography to the masses. Tune in to our campaign page at get.tinymos.com (http://get.tinymos.com) for more updates on our progress!

Team TinyMOS

[Lognic04]

Thanks Team tinymos! cant wait to see the finished camera!

[Regulus]

Hi TinyMOS

Is there a downloadable PDF or similar of the complete specs?
I cannot see anywhere the aperture, or shutter speed range, on the website.
This may be an excellent Aurora photography tool, but I need some control for ISO (up to 800) and shutter speed (up to 45secs, or maybe 30 would do with this aperture of 1.4)

Trevor

[tinymos]

Hello Trevor,

Thank you for the questions. Unfortunately, we do not have a downloadable PDF for the Tiny1's specifications. The only one available can be found at http://bit.ly/tiny1_specs.

The aperture depends on the lens which you use since the Tiny1 allows for interchangeable lenses.

The shutter speed on the Tiny1 can go from 1/10000 to 60 seconds. ISO can go up to 3200 and can be controlled as you would expect for a manual camera.

With regards to Aurora photography, I am pleased to say we have an aurora function that can automate the process for you. Of course, this is just an option so you are still able to use the Tiny1 with your preferred settings.

Hope I've answered your questions :)

Team TinyMOS

[Regulus]

Thank you, yes, answered satisfactorily.
I will keep an eye out for the appearance of Canon EF mount adapters then. Cheers.


Trev

[tinymos]

The Tiny1 supports the Canon EF mount adapters, but available only in manual focus :)

Team TinyMOS

[sil]

I'm really excited to get mine and see how well it performs. My hope is it'll allow me to get more astrophotography done easier, as a stroke left me without a working left arm and walking/balance difficulties that make it difficult to use my heavier gear (hell any gear really). I think this'll work nicely on my polarie and I really hope the built in augmented reality star map will make it easier to get my targets in shot without a lot of painful guesswork I currently have. I also hope it doesn't rely on a mobile phone for operation, I've been burnt a few times because the apps tend to only be developed for current generation OSes and I can't afford (or want) to upgrade my phone every few months. My iphone is permanently stuck on iOS7 and won't update.


Also sounds like it might be fun to play as a daytime IR camera, I assume there will be a manual/custom white balance option to help with that? I couldn't see anything about photographing the sun, again I assume the sensor is safe to do that with an appropriate baader filter attached or through a solarscope (I havent done much photoagraphy with my coronado again because of difficulties).

I've heard on forums some people "poo-pooing" the Tiny1 for all the usual ignorant reasons: sensor size, pixel size, etc etc. TinyMOS are not claim this is a pocket replace for expensive SBIG and other dedicated imaging systems. Nor is it a replacement for DSLRs. But it does look like an easy option for people to get into some good astrophotography a bit more accessibly, and maybe fill in the gap between traditional photography and typical astrophotography (ie lots of capture frames and post processing work). I'm definitely keen to test it against my D800 and hopefully get back outside looking at the skies a bit more.

I've just gotten an email from TinyMOS. There's an android app demo you can check out (I only have one phone not android so can't try myself) http://bit.ly/tin1demo.

Also there are some Tiny1 cameras available to preorder at early bird price at: http://bit.ly/Tiny1_secretperk.

[dannat]

sensor size appears fairly small, even compared with u4/3 which can also use c-mount lenses -all for the cost of a new entry level d-slr or u4/3 camera.
am i wrong in thinking its a webcam in a pocket camera housing?

[Regulus]

Interesting thought Daniel. A webcam with software to give manual controls.

Trev

[tinymos]

Thank you for your kind words Sil. Yes, we did get some flak because we're quite unconventional in our hardware design. :lol:

Now to answer your questions:

1) Yes it works in standalone mode. That's a major thing we wanted to solve. We tried using scientific cameras before, the fact that we needed our laptop leaves a lot to be desired. It makes the trip so much more complicated.

2) It is designed to work with both iOS and Android. We try to maintain compatibility as much as possible but cannot guarantee iOS 7 at the moment.

3) Daytime IR would be possible with a software switch. However you'll need to find a way to get an IR pass filter. That is something we haven't looked into yet.

4) We've imaged the Sun before with a Thousand Oak filter during the solar eclipse. We've also imaged the Sun before using a 0.5A Etalon with help from the National University of Singapore. We'll see if can publish those soon.

5) Regarding WB for IR in day time - we're looking into that but we can't confirm if we can get natural colors without the IR cut filter. It appears we need to use some color remapping to achieve that and it wouldn't work in all conditions. Probably best left to advanced users (:

Keep the questions coming, we'll answer them to the best we can.

Cheers,
Grey
On behalf of TinyMOS team
get.tinymos.com

[tinymos]

Hi guys,

We're not a webcam with software to give manual controls. We previously built a prototype in a similar manner to show the use case but the performance was horrible. USB doesn't have the throughput to give good refresh rate (think a 2 second refresh lag), especially since the images need to go through an Image Processor (ISP) to give a preview in real time.

We did design the camera with pro-users in mind though. We realize from the start that a 1/3" sensor won't compete with the large sensor cameras for DSO imaging. So we went all out on the planetary, lunar and solar side. We're doing 4MP at 60fps for lucky shot imaging, by buffering into 4GB of RAM on the system.

Best,
Grey
On behalf of TinyMOS

[sil]

By IR photography i'm more interested in creative IR. Currently I'd use an unmodified camera with an R72 IR filter attached, switch to custom white balance and point the camera at a green tree or grass to set my white balance, then my landscape shots come out with white foliage. Its a creative look i like, the rest of the colours are of course all wrong and i leave them as the camera sees them.

No doubt I'll play with the Tiny1s daytime capabilities but dont want or need it to be a daytime camera. Keep your focus on getting the astrophotography correct :)

[tinymos]

Cool, that sounds like fun. I think our CTO used to do that with a modified DSLR. It just didn't occur to me. :lol: - Grey

[Nikolas]

All quoted in US dollars which means it's more expensive for Aussies, bit of a putoff for the budget conscious.
I'm still not sure if this is just a gimmick or not.
I'd like to see a proper video showing its capabilities and not a slick marketing vid. Is that possible?

[tinymos]

Hello Nikolas,

We are able to do a Skype video with you to show you the prototype. If you know anyone else who is interested as well, you can invite them to join us as well. I'll PM you the Skype ID which you can reach us on.

Team TinyMOS

[Nikolas]

I'd prefer all to be out in the open on the forum for transparency, some of us have a life and no time to skype.
Can you answer my questions on here? If not then I'm not convinced.

[tinymos]

Hi Nikolas, sure I think we would need some time to produce such a video. We thought that Skype would be better as it is real time and your queries can be better answered. Do let us know if you're still keen.

Team TinyMOS

[kittenshark]

Hi, this looks interesting! I know it's a long shot, but would you at some point be interested in supplying these in a specialist astronomy shop? I'm trying to build up a range of products to appeal to a beginner astrophotographer but there's not a lot out there that suits complete beginners. I'll be in Singapore later this year for family events, would like to meet and check your project out. PM me.

[tinymos]

Hello Cheryl-Ann,

Yes we will be retailing the Tiny1 some time around 2017 Q2. We developed the Tiny1 because we wanted to make astrophotography accessible to the masses by providing them with a simple to use astronomy camera. Glad to know we share the same goal :)

Sure, the founders would be more than happy to meet you and demo the Tiny1. I'll PM you the details.

Team TinyMOS

[sil]

I agree, when its released there will be tons of review videos and gimmick or not will be revealed. Seems to be a strange product to me. Astronomers are often older demographic, not always the most computer literate and therefore not interested in social media stuff but tend to be highly intelligent. Taking good pics is more important than having gear linked to our phones or posting stuff quickly to facebook. The early supporters will quickly make it known if TinyMOS have been misleading people or the product is total crap or not. So its up to them to do it right. Its not like anyone can possibly recommend them or their products at this stage, so you'll just have to wait and see.

[Icearcher]

Interesting idea.

Playing devils advocate for a second, how would you compare this to some of the point and shoot cameras on the market that are known to be quite good at night time shooting? for example the Sony RX100?

[tinymos]

Hello Chris,

The Tiny1 is designed to simplify the capturing process by providing integrated tools within the device itself. It provides a huge value to beginners and those looking to pick up astrophotography as a hobby. Depending on the skill level of the user, one can always extract more performance out of any system. :)

Team TinyMOS

[sil]

First up, sorry to Canberrans for the rain last night, my Tiny1 arrived yesterday. Interesting beast and a variety of disappointments and maybe I'll never be able to make best use of it to be fairer to it.

Easy ones first, build is damn solid and the lenses seem well built too.

Thats about it, packaging it good for the camera but doesn't allow for lenses/accessories. Not printed manual or even slip of paper to be found to get you started. Finish on the camera makes it slippery to hold, for someone with only one working arm this is VERY concerning especially as there is no wrist or neck strap for the camera either despite having mount holes for them.

The camera itself only has an on button and a shutter button you need to be a body builder to press so forget a nice light touch click or holding it steady by hand. And yes it seems capable of taking hand held night shots technically. The touch screen has no alternate shutter button so it MUST be paired with an Android phone it seems. NO Iphone support for this thing and iphone is all i have, so it looks like I'll be forced to buy an android phone (No idea what specs) just to use the Tiny1. Let alone configure it, it has almost nothing to configure in its menu at all on the camera itself so i can only presume its all in the android app but since I can't use it I cant tell for sure.

its screen shows a live view superimpossed with a star chart and you can search for items and it will direct you. IF you are in the northern hemisphere it seems. it has GPS always on so it should know at least which hemisphere you're in. so the star chart is showing me an incorrect view so I cant comment on its accuracy beyond its completely inaccurate right now. Again, no menu items on camera to configure so i assume its in the android app I think I mentioned I cant use either.

Image quality, well it does take photos, does save in DNG and RAW formats (only its DNG will load into PixInsight, dont know about photoshop ) and does capture stars hand held. This morning the sky was clear but lightening when I got to try shooting outside so no dark sky shots yet and no file to show as i was waiting for taxi to work. My quick tests last night from the garage (it was raining so i didnt take it out into the wet) showed promise but the pictures are extremely grainy to put it mildly.

My first impressions are this is not a camera for astronomers, its a camera for android fanbois who drool over instagram and think facebook is deep and meaning full. Maybe if the decide to support iphone so i can at least configure and take time lapsed shots with it (I was really caught out by the camera having virtually no controls at all , it requires a damn phone, cant even be used via usb.) I does appear to be for people looking for small dimension shots to send to social media rather than for good high resolution photos. As a simple travel camera for astronomers to pic up a few shots I would say look to one of the quality compact cameras on the market instead, this is not a "self contained" camera and having to use another device to use it means you have to have two high drain devices and keep them charged so not really practical for travel being forced to have two gadget when it should have been one and if you got lenses too its more stuff to lose and figure out how to pack.

[sil]

Had a bit more of a play found a few more settings. Camera app keeps crashing, cant set up wifi access point at all, some menu areas are dead ends you cant back out of, i think i saw something that might be an intervalometer but cant find it again. At this point even at the early bird price i paid it wasnt worth the money and they havent delivered on their pr promises.

[simon_rl]

Thanks for the write up Sil. This is very disappointing, I ordered one not long after the they first came up on the funding website and I am in the next batch to be sent out.

[PCH]

If it's not a rude question guys, how much were they?

[simon_rl]

Paul, all cost details are in the link below.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/tiny1-the-world-s-smallest-astronomy-camera-photography/x/14713005#/

[sil]

I had a response from their support saying the intervalometer is in the camera but wont say where. With further looking I still cant find it and I even try looking in all the items that don't seem obvious and found a bunch of "This feature not yet implemented" messages yet.

I tried to get a solar photo yesterday out of it. The solar filter is a black/glass type white light filter or maybe just a deep neutral density filter. It slips over the end of the telephone lens (not screw in like a filter) and has no cap to protect it either. didnt come in a plastic protective case either. Found it very hard to try to tell if I was in focus, the image was constantly overexposed on the screen.

The only device I can find with the same sensor size is the iphone 5s and my gut feeling is they sourced a chinese fake iphone and installed a single android app on it, which crashes. I think they could have just made this a phone app to run on any phone with better hardware. I hope others find it more useful and get their monies worth, but I am not feeling it, just feeling ripped off at this point. maybe clear skies tonight or tomorrow night to try for some wide angle shots to show off.

I think it cost around $600 for the camera with wide and telephoto lenses, nikon lens adapter and eyepiece adapter. Yes technically it could be used during the day but its too problematic to bother, the screen is horrible to use in daylight and its hard to tell its turned itself off.

Such a shame, I had been looking forward to getting it for so long and hoped it would be a time saver to help me get outside more often but no.

[sil]

I uploaded a shot in jpeg as its saved on the camera, zero processing, see the comments to my astrobin account (http://www.astrobin.com/309365/), it would save here without processing.

resized it would probably look good on facebook (well its billed as a social media astro camera), but astrometry failed to plate solve. i have five such shots and pixinsight and astripxel processor fail to automatically register the images. flats are horribly vignetted an made manual processing worse (see attachment below).

[sil]

They released a firmware fix on the weekend and it worked and fixed a ton of stuff and now the camera can actually be used, not very practically, but it works. They redid the menus completely, but no way to format memory card and I'm yet to have my cards show up in camera so its still storing to built in memory. timelapse capture is there and works. getting focus with the wide angle lens (all i've had time to try) is pretty much impossible. Feedback from the camera is really non-existant, I can't tell when it takes the shot, if its still taking a shot or whatever. No exposure controls either so my evening tests on the weekend were way over exposed as it tried to make the sky bright and no indication it was going to take a long exposure . Yeah with no camera feedback it sits silently and you don't know if you can touch the camera or if that will ruin the shot. GPS orientation looks fixed but its object database is poor, Canopus doesnt exist in it it seems with any designation, I was looking at canopus on the screen but it had nothing identified anywhere nearby at all. But Carina was labelled off to the right so it should have something for the second brightest star.

Anyway at least the camera isnt dead and looks like it could take usable photos if they stop doing a half assed job on getting it to do what they promised. Dont bother ordering one if you were considering it until they sort their stuff out. Havent yet tried if their raw format loads into anything but it takes raw + jpg at least.