The Losey Lab: UV camera system

Our ultraviolet videocamera system was designed and built by a team of engineers working at the Engineering Support Facility, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Here, Peter and Jill perform an emergency field soldering repair on remote Johnston Atoll.

The camera system, shown below, is centered around a CCD camera with image intensifier, mounted on a focussing tractor. In front of the camera are three rotating wheels driven by separate motors. The first wheel holds up to four lenses; presently there are two, one wide-angle and one telephoto. The second and third wheels each have space for five optical filters. The rest of the space is taken by power supplies, a CPU, and control circuits for the system.

The system fits neatly into an underwater housing with a quartz faceplate (glass does not transmit UV, so all the optics are made of quartz or special plastics). On the outside of the underwater housing for the system, an attachment allows the placement of neutral density filters for work in extremely bright environments. The housing is then connected to a pan-and-tilt mechanism and tripod. An umbilicus from camera to a laptop on shore allows us to select filters and lens, focus, pan and tilt, change gain settings, and perform other minor tasks. A joystick controller and virtual-reality goggles complete the ensemble. The video signal is recorded to a portable digital video deck, while a microphone allows the camera operator to add a running audio explanation of settings, filters, lenses, location, etc, to the videotape as it is recorded. Click here for photos of camera deployment.

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