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Uranus manually with a webcam?

Charlie_132

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Charlie_132

Charlie_132

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Hello

When I find this planet I know that I'll want to take a photo of it.

Does anyone have any tips on capturing this planet manually with a webcam?
I used a tutorial made a while back in april time to capture Jupiter, Saturn and Mars and managed to get some pictures that I am happy with.

I am guessing with using a xbox cam or a lifecam, it will be a case of putting the exposure and gain right up, then trying to get something to drift across the screen.

does anyone know what I should do in regards to white balance and some other things I may of missed?

I really would like to just get some sort of light bluey/green dot/disk come across my screen. I am not bothered about trying to get detail into it or lots of data. even a 3 second video would do me... As long as I get something!

Thanks :)

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Joe_L

Joe_L

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Sounds like a bit of a challenge as I suspect its too faint for a webcam unless it's had a low-light mod done. Just letting it drift past you might find it hard to distinguish it from nearby stars. Are you using the cam with a telescope?

Joe

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RichM63

RichM63

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By heck, you certainly like a challenge! :)

Look into the planetary imaging section and you will see what some of the guys are managing with much heftier kit.

I enjoy a webcam challenge, but I reckon that all you will see will be about this size,  . moving rapidly out of shot. (if you see anything at all).

You won't get any detail, and I doubt colour.

For me Uranus is still too low in the sky at any sort of sensible hour, I'll wait until around 10/12/2014 and give it a go from about 8pm between E and S at I reckon about 75°.

But I will give it a shot.

The gain is going to have to be cranked right up 100% and the frame rate right down 5fps I would think. (never tried for Uranus with webcam).

Best of luck.

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Charlie_132

Charlie_132

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Haha yeah I do like a challenge!

Usually results in me getting quite frustrated, but it all comes together in the end.

I managed to get okay photos of jupiter saturn and mars with and without a 2x barlow.

You said I would see it about this size then I cnt see a photo. Did ytou put a photo or anything there?

Thanks for the info in regards to gain, I would of never found it otherwise!

I need to find exactly where it is in the sky before I attempt to image it... That is proving very difficult!

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Astrosurf

Astrosurf

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I've just managed to image Uranus but my webcam didn't capture the blue/green colour very well. What I did was home in with a 24mm EP then an 8mm. I used Stellarium, zoomed in, to see the pattern of stars around the planet. I checked what I was seeing in the EP and was lucky the same stars were there (inverted with my Newt) and the planet now recognisable, although a star-like dot. I centred Uranus right in the centre of my 8mm EP then added the webcam (Phillips SPC900NC). I pushed up the gain, brightness and exposure in Sharpcap and fiddled till it didn't seem too bright but bright enough, then moved the focusing in and out until the planet came into view. It was rather faint. It was a fiddle but worth it.

Alexxx

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ArmyAirForce

ArmyAirForce

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Here's Uranus with a Skywatcher Explorer 200PDS a x2 TAL barlow and an SPC900 webcam. The scope was on an NEQ6 Pro mount, as at 2 metres focal length, the dim planet would quickly drift out of view without tracking.

The video ( AVI ) was shot at 10fps for 4 minutes. The first picture in the set of four attached was a screen capture from that video.

The second picture ( top right ) shows the stacked TIFF with no adjustments. 25% of frames were stacked in Autostakkert!2 with a x3 Drizzle.

The third picture was after an RGB Align in Registax v5.1 and Colour Balance adjustments.

The last one is the finished image. I made a circular select around the planet, slightly smaller, with a feathered edge of a few pixels. The selection was inverted and the background darkened, which cleaned up the fuzzy edge of the planet.

post-20257-0-07410300-1413664249_thumb.j

Here's Neptune, done with the same set up with similar processing.

post-20257-0-27900900-1413664358.jpg

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Charlie_132

Charlie_132

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After seeing what Uranus and Neptune both look like with a webcam, I think I would much prefer to image Neptune because of the colour of the image.

I would be manually imaging it with a 127 mak. Would this be too difficuly with Neptune and a mak?

I would be using a MS Lifecame to image it, or maybe a xbox cam if i can get the lense cleaned.

On the sky at night, they said that Neptune is the brightest dot to the right of a star called Sigma - but on Stellarium, this star does not exist.....

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  • 4 months later...
strinjf

strinjf

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I'm a little late to this party, but last night Uranus was in a relatively easy to find location, so I decided to have my first go at it (despite being fairly low in the sky ~20 degrees).

I was using my Skywatcher 150P on a motorised EQ3-2 mount and my trusty SPC900 webcam.

Uranus was easy enough to find, and I captured about 3 minutes of video in all, stacking the best 25% percent in Registax to make the final image (plus a slight colour saturation boost in Photoshop to bring out more of the colour).

Camera settings in Sharpcap were as follows:

[Philips SPC 900NC PC Camera]
Frame Divisor=1
Resolution=640x480
Frame Rate (fps)=20.00
Colour Space=YUY2
Exposure=-5
Brightness=64
Contrast=32
Saturation=0
Gamma=24
ColorEnable=255
BacklightCompensation=0
Gain=30
I've made a short YouTube video showing 15 seconds of the raw video, followed by the final still image.  It might be small and featureless (as you'd expect) but at least it was green  :grin:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qvawo-i7cGY

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