Help looking for a ccd or webcam camera

[Hartmann]

I am  looking for a planetary camera for bright objects like Moon, and planets.

I have a canon 600D DSRL camera for deep sky and long exposure photography, but it´s not the best option for video and planets, also is very heavy compared with a webcam. Suitable webcams like Toucam and SPC900 are difficult to find and are pretty expensive.  My two options are  find a modern alternative of a webcam suitable for astrophotography or buy and specific camera for bright objects  , but not very expensive.

Some one can give me some advice about good modern webcams  for astrophotography or specific cameras from orion or other manufacturers ?

[Pete Presland]

No shortage of choice. The zwo asi 120mm (mono) or 120mc (colour) are both very capable. What is your current set up and budget?

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[jambouk]

What is the absolute maximum budget?

The DSLR will be very good for lunar.

What scope are you using, what's its focal length?

James

[Hartmann]

No shortage of choice. The zwo asi 120mm (mono) or 120mc (colour) are both very capable. What is your current set up and budget?

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

What is the absolute maximum budget?

The DSLR will be very good for lunar.

What scope are you using, what's its focal length?

James

My main  telescope is a Mak 127 in a NEQ-5  equatorial mount . I´m going to buy the motors  too  because i purchased the mount with manual controls only , my current budget is around 120-130 euros .

it´s not for a very serious work. I´m starting in astrophotography and the main target would be the  moon and planets .  Will I get good results with a orion starShoot ? it´s not very expensive and it´s ready to go withouth modiffications.

thanks !

[Hartmann]

Ok !

Finally i´ve purchased from Ebay a spc 880 webcam  flashed to a spc 900. I hope that it will works well.

[jambouk]

Well done.

James

[lgrobe]

Hi,

I am currently also investigating current choices of camera modules, and instead of opening a new thread will try to revive this one.

My main focus is on webcams and board cameras made for security and surveillance. The application would be not that typical for this forum, I am aiming at capturing daytime skies, with a 180 degrees lens (s-mount / M12x.5 if possible). I want to do this with full control over exposure time and gain and, if possible, access the imagery with as little processing as possible, something like raw data from the sensor. The smallest object I need to resolve is the sun, and my budget is limited to about $200.

Of course there are several camera modules on the market for scientific applications. I was thinking about webcams and board cameras as cheaper alternatives. Current candidate for webcams is the logitech c910, as it comes with a reasonably sized sensor (important to get close to 180 degrees) and good control using the uvc interface. Surveillance cameras are available for little money with rather large sensor sizes, and would allow me to pick a framegrabber with optimum pixel depth. Besides, these tend to follow some standards (board size, lens mount, ...) which are usually ignored by webcam manufacturers. However my insight in this market is not even limited, I have no experience at all with such cameras. One interesting technology implemented in such models seams to be the introduction of wide dynamic range in this area. However, as far as I understood, the dynamic range is extended by locally adaptive exposure (integration) times. This would not be transparent in the imagery, so I would actually lose control over the exposure settings.

Are there any current databases of camera modules used for applications in astronomy? I find it very difficult to get comparable specs especially of webcams, even the sensor size for most current models is kept as a secret. What is the recommended camera module to be controlled from Linux, giving exposure control and access to "raw" data if budget is limited?

Cheers, Lars.