webcam astrophotography with a mac?

[tiredboy]

So my Philips webcam will be with me in a few weeks (sitting at father in laws at the moment) and I want to start taking some pictures. I have bootcamp installed on my Mac laptop so can run windows programmes but would prefer a native mac option if possible to cut down the steps to save the images. All the tutorials I've seen seem to use windows and I wondered whether there is a mac option and whether it is as good.

[Stephen]

I'm on a MacBook (late '09) and have tried a few OSX programs. I'm afraid I've not found any of them as complete or as useable as the Windows alternatives.

Bootcamp FTW

There is a Mac users group (Community / Social Groups) that has some posts about OSX software, I'd suggest going and having a look at them and seeing if any of the software works better for you than I found it

[NickK]

Astronomy apps on OSX are sadly lacking.

I'm a mac developer and currently putting together a framework that should allow any application using it to support any device. It will make development of OSX applications easier and allowing developers to focus on the usability/features rather than writing drivers for equipment that doesn't support OSX. It's called AOSX.

I hope this will provide an attractive platform for equipment vendors to write an AOSX plugin which I'm attempting to make a quick and simple affair.

My plan is to provide initial support for the cams I have access to - ATIK 16ic (USB FT232BM) and MS HD lifecam (USB Quicktime) - then publish it as opensource and push tracking etc. I hope others will then step in for their hardware - companies like starlight xpress have published their control protocols but I don't have the hardware to test on. If it takes off I can use that position to ask for a loan in return for developing a driver.

It won't offer an application direct to end users, however with a few commands it's easy for application developers to utilise the library of known devices

[CarlLydon]

Last night I finally found a solution for cheap webcams at least. On the mac store I found "Webcam settings" for $8. It works with most Logitech cameras. Went to Radio Shack and picked up a "Logitech HD c270" camera ($21, 1280x720, 30fps max) and the app worked fine. I was able to change the gain and exposure time (which changed the framerate) in-camera just fine. So along with software "Debut" ($40, it can also do screen capture) for capture it seems like a complete solution. Building the camera now (was using my DSL camera in video mode previously)

Tried "Webcam settings" with an old GE webcam and gain/exposure didn't work, so it won't work with every camera, but does work with logitech which has tons of cameras.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/webcam-settings/id533696630?mt=12

https://secure.nch.com.au/cgi-bin/register.exe?software=debut

[dvdearden]

I'm curious how things worked out with the Logitech HD c270 camera and Webcam Settings. I've been struggling to use a Meade LPI with my Mac, and even under VMWare it has proven difficult to control the exposures and get decent frame rates (I'm limited to about 1 or 2 per second). Natively on the Mac (using Sonix drivers) the exposure times are fine for lunar work, but I can't see Jupiter at all and can't find a way to increase the gain or the exposure to make it show up. I'm to the point I'm strongly interested in trying a different camera I can really control.

Thanks,

David