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fun with tablet and webcam


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After the laptop has become chocolate T pot have had no means to try and have a go with a webcam and my heritage 130p or any scope.

I bought a 10 metre USB extension cable to try but my arms are not long enough to see what is on the monitor and adjust the truss height on the heritage to find the focus spot where focus is possible. I had no barlow at the time to try with.

So I have a lovely TuUcam the 740x one that looks like a bird and comes in a yellow egg and the obligatory xBox cam.

After reading a post on here about USBwebcameras as an Android app I went to see what was new in the app store, I had earleir in the year extensively researched on webcam capabilities with Android and whether to root my Nexus or not, but nothing was good enough to bother progressing that thought. Here we are in October and there are (at least) two apps now that can do this.

I plumped for USBwebcameras and downloaded the free version (with adds) and tried the cameras I already had, the xBox did nada but the ToUcam did light the LEDs up (it is not yet modded or was the xBox spare) so no joy there. (the other app was no better but these are very old webcams now).

Undetered I went to the bay and found a very cheap new webcam to try £4.29 to see if there was proof in the pudding.... I picked this one because it had manual focus rather than elctronic which I thought meant it was more likely to communicate then one that relied on drivers, and it arrived sturdy little thing attached to a powerful paper clip but no driver CD which was brilliant.

Plugged in through my OTG cable to my 2012 Nexus 7 running KitKat 4.4.4 and bingo it worked and also has contrast, gain (I think) and brightness controll can save video and take stills. Cue well chuiffed.

Now just waiting for the Moon to turn up, how portable is this VERY.

So here it is (photo is low quality the view on the screen was much sharper).

gallery_28282_2962_150035.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

So progress (see other thread) did snip the LEDs off but my nose cone would not go through the front casing hole but case is too hard a plastic and awkward to cut it bigger so have disposed of it and have used insulating tape to hold the board into the back case. Nose cone now fitted.

Trial run in the heritage before properly fitting the nose cone showed promising start, would make at a guess 12 pane mosaic to cover a full Moon so image scale looking great with no barlow used. Rock on Jupiter.

This is so fab with no laptop to still have a chance to try imaging.

Once I have a picture to share of the Moon or a frame I will share what this cheap CMOS webcam is.

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Tried again tonight with using the nose cone did not need to drop the trusses at all.

Seeing was terrible using my 6mm eye piece the image was not good would not focus and could see no detail at all. I had been about to write the webcam quality bad but the eye piece test gives it more legs yet.

This is a screen grab, I did take a couple short videos which show fleeting moment of better clarity.

The image scale is huge!!

post-28282-0-72025700-1415227089_thumb.p

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Have an idea. The nose cone goes in very deep into the focuser and I did not have the trusses collapsed at all.

So if I drop the trusses 2 inches down and then use a 2 inch extension tube would that effectively increase the focal length of the webcam and make it less like a 3mm eye piece?

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After the laptop has become chocolate T pot have had no means to try and have a go with a webcam and my heritage 130p or any scope.

I bought a 10 metre USB extension cable to try but my arms are not long enough to see what is on the monitor and adjust the truss height on the heritage to find the focus spot where focus is possible. I had no barlow at the time to try with.

So I have a lovely TuUcam the 740x one that looks like a bird and comes in a yellow egg and the obligatory xBox cam.

After reading a post on here about USBwebcameras as an Android app I went to see what was new in the app store, I had earleir in the year extensively researched on webcam capabilities with Android and whether to root my Nexus or not, but nothing was good enough to bother progressing that thought. Here we are in October and there are (at least) two apps now that can do this.

I plumped for USBwebcameras and downloaded the free version (with adds) and tried the cameras I already had, the xBox did nada but the ToUcam did light the LEDs up (it is not yet modded or was the xBox spare) so no joy there. (the other app was no better but these are very old webcams now).

Undetered I went to the bay and found a very cheap new webcam to try £4.29 to see if there was proof in the pudding.... I picked this one because it had manual focus rather than elctronic which I thought meant it was more likely to communicate then one that relied on drivers, and it arrived sturdy little thing attached to a powerful paper clip but no driver CD which was brilliant.

Plugged in through my OTG cable to my 2012 Nexus 7 running KitKat 4.4.4 and bingo it worked and also has contrast, gain (I think) and brightness controll can save video and take stills. Cue well chuiffed.

Now just waiting for the Moon to turn up, how portable is this VERY.

So here it is (photo is low quality the view on the screen was much sharper).

gallery_28282_2962_150035.jpg

Brilliant shot of the 9 Planets, I can never get the Earth into mine. ;)

Have you simply tried pulling the camera tube out slightly, or adding an empty Barlow (lensless) into the mix? Changing FL for me requires major surgery and so I have to  work on the other end.

You are capturing the Moon, although out of focus it does show that the camera can do it. (what resolution did you use; maybe have a play around).

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Have had another go at this tonight on the Moon. Looked like lots of turbulence tonight and very cold!

Have decided the heritage focuser unit is the very big frustrating point so I will next try my little celestron 70mm mac and see if that focuser fairs better.

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What would you like to know?

I will soon be able to try an xbox using our win 8.1 tablet but for now I have not exhausted this sub £4 webcam using the nexus.

I am braving the thought of trying Jupiter with the mac of I can find where I put it.

The tablet is so easy to use with the webcam app which so far did not need any adjustments.

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Well, things hanging together with insulation tape, could be classed as my 'thing', but it would be nice to hear your report as to whether it will be worth creating a custom camera body/mount for such a cheap item.

A few decent pics, sell a whole heap of kit. ;)

ie, do I take the time to make myself a webcam body.

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To the video or the eBay webcam.

I'd it is the ebay webcam I will fish out what it was probably tomorrow looking in emails but will see what I can find using tablet whilst waiting for Jupiter to rise but have stock the mac on a shelf outside in the porch

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em.. well the success was the adaptor dove bar on the Heritage 130p base, that was good I will be able to use my DSLR and my ST80 on the same table top base.

The C70 was just too small an image of Jupiter for it to register on the webcam.

I will try next clear night using the webcam on Jupiter in the Heritage to see if it works there.

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  • 1 year later...

Eventually Jupiter a clear night and the Moon all in one so had a play with the heritage 130p and xbox 360 though the tablet was running 8.1 with sharpcap.

I used the Moon to get focus and work out how low to drop the trusses then moved over to jupiter. All four moons where nice dots so I assumed good focus but I couldn't get the settings right to bring out the main belts. Still a massive step forward. I then remembered I had an astro engineering x1.6 barlow which I screwed into the webcam nose cone (pleased with it I got it from astroboot and much nicer nose cone than the ebay item) and had to raise the trusses back to normal height. Once the auto settings briefly showed the belts I've just got to read up some more so I make better alterations (I hope) next time.

Since last use I have flocked the plastic area opposite the focuser and the bottom of the focus tube and found I didn't need to use my light shroud.

Still to do find the roll of plumbers tape.

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