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Xbox Livecam Mod (Cliff)


gdheib0430

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I've often wondered about the possibility of using the actual webcam or it's output to track planets or the moon. Maybe it's that guiding systems need a near point source to work. Would only work for short and rapid exposures, of course, DSOs need long exposures and there's no camera output when it's accumulating the image.

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I'm wondering who will be the first to Mod an Xbox Kinect for Astrophotography use?! With it's auto-tracking technology, depth sensors and IR sensors, who knows what it could be capable of...:D:D:D

Sausages send/buy me one I'll take a look :(:p:p

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I'm having visions of amatuer astronomers around the country waving their arms around like Magus Pyke in increasingly deperate attempts to get their Kinect Mod's to actually do something - I bit like me whenever we try and play games using the infernal thing! :D:D

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they came i done a blue peter on one and tried last night, remember this is my very first go at astrophotography.

for 4 quid omg... i was pleased now to get to grips with processing :/

moon.jpgjup1.jpg

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to be honest i was very skeptical and very surprised when i tried it :) trying to focus the scope on jupiter is hard need a motor focuser for the nexstar 127 mak.

going to read up on processing as those images where done in registax 5 and no other processing done.

going to try with a barlow and a lot more careful focusing and playing with the sliders on sharpcap next time.

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had trouble seeing stars through it with the 127 mak but i didnt tweek the settings much imho it is best for cheap imaging of the moon and thats about it planets meh next clear night i will have a fiddle and post a pic.

although it did spark my interest in astro photography :/

if u mess with the brightness or gain too much they get very noisy images.

EDIT: lol aye they cheap enough to mess about with.

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Well noise is not an issue as I won't be using it for imaging, I am usiing a Microsoft Lifecam Cinema for that, need to do the mod yet, but the adapter is on its way to mount it in the focuser.

I also have a PS3 eye webcam that I tried in the dark, it made out very dim LEDs on the tv stand, adn the dimmer reflections in the glass, but no where near as good as the lifecam. Even better in low light is the webcam built into my laptop screen. I may do some digging around to see if they are available as spares lol.

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Two more random Moon shots, giving an idea of the cam's capabilities. Bear in mind, these are unguided single snaps, so I'm sure that with the right equipment, it can produce much better than this.

Managed to get some dirt on the ccd, given it a thorough clean now, so hopefully my next attempts will be blotch-free!

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How would you go about cleaning off the ccd? tad bit of pushed air and not canned air? Those shots look really nice currently waiting on my MS lifecam adapter to arrive to test that bad boy out...still haven't gotten this cam on par with those shots tends to be tons of noise for me just need to get the settings just right.

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This is the modded Xbox Live Cam i've done after folowing the guides. Can confirm that the adaptor from FLO does fit but the bit you unscrew the focusing lense out of has, 2 raised bits that need trimming before the adaptor fits flush. Link to the adaptor below:

First Light Optics - 1.25" nosepiece to webcam lens thread (ToUcam Pro SPC900NC)

Just reading up on Sharpcap and Registax before i give it a go!

Radders

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Can confirm that the adaptor from FLO does fit

Thank you very much indeed for that info!:)

Good luck with it, those two bits of software are pretty easy after a pretty short time to get used to the basics with them. SharpCap in particular is very easy to gain experience with.

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Whilst waiting for my camera Ive been ready up! Has anyone left the LEDs alone and simply cut off the nose piece?

The green LEDs light shouldnt really get into the picture should it?

Good question, I put tiny black triangles of insulation tape over them at first, as I could not see to do anything else with them, it blacked them out pretty good, but the cam got a little warm, like it does.

So, after some thinking and experimenting I found a way to see them enough to have a go at removing them, and this worked. I reassembled the cam and it had made no discernible difference to to image quality, showing it had probably not been an issue to start with.

However what is interesting is that the cam still gets warm, just by being plugged in, not actually being used, just plugged in! I'm guessing the leds don't actually add much if any heat.

Oh well! :)

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