A Miniature Astronomy Device Meant To Create High-Quality, Precision Photos Of The Heavens In Low Light
Imagine a camera as thin a smart phone and as compact as a GoPro. The box, smooth and styled in brushed anodized aluminum, is fitted with a large aperture camera and stabilizing sensors that can capture the cosmos.
That’s the concept of the Tiny1camera, a miniature astronomy device meant to create high-quality, precision photos of the heavens in -- you guessed it – low light.
The camera is the brainchild of Grey Tan, a lifelong astronomy enthusiast and managing director of the company that produces them, called TinyMOS. The company he started raised more than $350,000 on Indiegogo, a crowd funding web site, to produce the tiny cameras.
TinyMOS is based out of Singapore but the three founders anticipate distributing the cosmic camera in North America and across the world in the coming year. The Buzz spoke with Mr. Tan and co-founder and COO, Ashprit Singh Arora about deployment, inspiration and structure
MRV: What is the primary market for these cameras?
TinyMOS: Amateur Astronomers are the primary market for Tiny1. They struggle with expensive, heavy and complex systems to view and capture the night skies, and Tiny1 is designed to solve these problems. Explorers and Outdoor Enthusiasts are also interested in Tiny1 for its portability and low-light performance. Geographically, US is the primary market for Tiny1.
MRV: How many units are you trying to sell in the US in the first year?
TinyMOS: We have already received pre-orders for ~900 units with US being the largest contributor. We are aiming to sell about 2000 units in US in year 1.
MRV: Where did the design inspiration come from for the camera?
TinyMOS: The camera was Grey's brainchild. He conceptualized it when he realized astronomy imaging can be heavy, expensive and complex for the everyday person. Tiny1 was designed to simplify astronomy imaging for everyone, at a reasonable price.
The aesthetic design of the camera came from Lih Wei, our CTO. He chose clean, straight lines for a modern and functional design.
MRV: When did you decide to crowd-fund it?
TinyMOS: We decided to crowdfund it from the start. Creating a new camera is a massive undertaking. We took in feedback from the users early on and wanted their support to bring it to production. We are very glad Tiny1 was well received on Indiegogo.
MRV: You had great success in the crowd-funding stage. What did you do right?
TinyMOS: A lot of preparation work was done for the crowdfunding. We were very concerned with high profile campaigns that didn't delivery on their promises. That drove us to get down to work on the R&D to a very late stage before we went ahead for crowdfunding.
In the R&D phase, we faced many challenges and delays. Clearing that ahead of the crowdfunding gave us experience and confidence in delivery of our product. That was conveyed through open feedback during the campaign, convincing people of our intention and ability to delivery the product.
Looking back, those setbacks also gave us more time to engage with the community. We manage to go for trade shows and contact press agencies that gave us coverage on various news channels. The engagement with press and various communities gave us our first backers on Indiegogo. With their support we managed to clear our funding goal of 100,000USD in 4 hours. That gave confidence to other backers to jump in to support us.
MRV: Is this a camera that would be good for adventurers, explorers, RVers, etc?
TinyMOS: Yes, definitely! People who travel out of cities often see pristine night skies away from light pollution. We have seen Milky Way stretching horizon to horizon in Mersing (Malaysia), Mount Fuji (Japan) and several places in California. There are many backers who tell us of experiences under star filled skies, without a way to capture and share it.
Tiny1 is designed to do just that. It is easy to bring around with its small size. The augmented reality star map guides users through the stars and constellations. The capture presets helps even inexperienced hands capture the beauty of the night skies.
MRV: How does the technology in this product compare with the GoPro, for instance?
TinyMOS: The technology in this product is quite different from the GoPro. We're using large aperture ratio optics to collect the star light, focusing it on high quantum efficiency sensor to capture the image. Our camera also uses powerful Qualcomm processors to implement our patent pending noise reduction algorithm to get clean, low light images.
MRV: Where will the units be manufactured?
TinyMOS: The prototypes are manufactured in Germany, assembled and tested in Singapore.
MRV: What kind of passion drove this?
TAN: I [Grey Tan] was very interested in photography since young and had 4 years experience working as a photographer during my university years. I went on a school trip in my university for an astronomy elective and was captivated by the sight of the milky way. I found that there was no easy way for the average photographer to capture the sights, that's why we made Tiny1. I guess there was always a sense of mysteriousness to the stars and a sense of exploration there, stemming from watching Star Trek and playing games like Starcraft as well.
MRV: From the conceptual and practical application standpoint what were the challenges and obstacles you encountered so far?
TinyMOS: The largest challenges were the fact that the camera's is building on state of the art imaging and mobile technologies. We're working with Qualcomm to develop the processor board. The processes are fairly complex because of the various working parts coming together. We require specialty in board design and software design. These are skills not easy to acquire in a startup environment. We're glad to have received help from mentors and various government bodies in Singapore.
MRV: In terms of functionality what are the features the team is most proud in terms of what the lens can actually do? Can they speak to what makes it exceptional? Does it use refracting? Light density? Global positioning stored in small computer memory? Want to get more a sense of its function.
TinyMOS: We're proud of the fact that for a fraction of the cost and complexity of a DSLR, Tiny1 can help the everyday person image the night sky and begin their exploration of space. The secret to that is a holistic approach to camera design and patent pending noise reduction technology.
David Irvin
A graduate with a Masters Of Science from the University Of North Texas, David has written on many beats including crime and business for such outlets as the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Montgomery Advertiser & USA. He enjoys RVing and surfing the Internet.
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