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tibbs1972

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Everything posted by tibbs1972

  1. I had another go at the moon tonight with my Webcam. I manged to split the video with Virtual dub and Stack the frames with Registax. I also tried to get an image of jupiter, but it was too bright. No amount of adjustment of gamma or exposure setting would reduce the glare.
  2. Thanks for the support, I managed to repair my tripod tonight and get the camera working again. As the cllouds have rolled in, I've have a look at getting the philips camera working. Cheers Neil
  3. Somehow, I got a burst of enthusiasm today and decided to repair my EQ2 tripod this evening. After an hour and drilling and tapping, I managed to get it balanced. As it happened the clouds also cleared. I quickly setup the laptop and had another shot at using a Webcam. I managed to get about 30secs of footage before the clouds rolled in, so I didn't get a chance to practice focusing with the webcam. After downloading and using Virtual dub to splice the video and remove the rubbish frames of the video, and putting the 150 or so frames into registax, I managed to create the image attached. I think its the highest power image I've ever managed to get of the moon. All in all, I'm back on a high again. I seem to have made the Tripod a bit more stirdy as well with the fixings I made and have managed to track the moon tonight, which I've never managed to do before. A very short, but worth while observing session in the end before the clouds rolled in.
  4. I Managed to process a small video of Jupiter and upload it to youtube. Jupiter 1st Feb 2012 @18:31 - YouTube As expected, not much detail. I can only just see two Moons. I didn't get the focus sharp enough and I need to learn how to reduce the glare. I'll leave this for the time being until I have more time and patience, as it takes a lot of time getting the focus and alignment of the telescope correct. It was worth the effort of setting up though, as I now know what is possible at a later date.
  5. Thanks for the advice. I've had a go, but honestly, my tripod is rubbush. Its the cheap one that came with the Telescope "EQ2". With the extreme cold, the knobs snapped tongiht. Its causing me no end of problems trying a align the scope. I really need to upgrade. I did catch a bit of footage of Jupiter and 2 moons with the webcam tonight, but I don't think it will be very good. I'll have a look and see if I can process anything. I purchased the 2" Light Pollution Filter you recommended and will go back to trying widefield photography for a while. At least I can have a play with the new filter on my camera. If I make any use of the webcam footage, I'll post it on the board or youtube. I'll, also see if I can flash the philips camera again. Seems like I've given myself a lot of work to do in the evenings.
  6. Thanks for the support, I may go back to the Philips Webcam, but so far, after removing the lens, all I get is an alternating Yellow/Blue flashing screen at 10 frames per second. I'm not sure how to fix that issue. Maybe I should flash the camera again, I'm not sure.
  7. A while back I purchased a Philips SPC900NC Webcam and flashed it etc to use with Sharpcap Webcam imaging software. I then watched the astronomyshed tutorials on youtube to learn how to setup the camera. I downloaded the software from the link below. http://sites.google.com/site/rwgastro/sharpcap After messing around with the camera, all I managed to get was a flashing screen. I got frustrated and gave up and I still couldn't get the Philips camera working tonight. Yesterday, I thought I would have another crack at it, so I decided to keep the cost down and purchased a cheap Webcam from Tesco for about £7.85. Tonight, I removed the lens from the webcam and taped it to my cannon T-ring adapter using electrical tape and installed it on my Telescope. After an hour of messing around with settings, I was again getting frustrated, as all I could get were light and dark screens testing with a torch and led etc. I was about to give up again, but then I realised I had missed a crucial point. There's no point waving the scope about at night trying to find something to focus on. I had forgotten one crucial step in the process....... Before messing around with Sharpcap Settings, I should have aligned the Telescope with an object using a normal eye piece, in this case, my 15mm Plossal. One of the most annoying problems with my location is a cement factory about 1 1/2 miles north of the village with 24/7 lighting. But tonight, this had a really big advantage. I setup my scope to align with some of the lights on the factory roof. In anticipation, I quickly swapped my eye piece with the webcam and attempted to focus.... Success, suddeny 2 of the lights came into foucs on my laptop screen. I'm now ready to have a go at recording Planets ( very ambitious, I know ) with my telescope and cheap Tesco Webacm. I'm just waiting for the clouds to clear, but I do feel a great sense of achievement, managing to get the camera and software working. I've attached my first image with the Webcam and Telescope, I know is not an astronomical image, and I need better focus, but It's the achievement of getting the Webcam working that I'm so chuffed about.
  8. I nipped out this morning about 5am before work and took 30sec exposures on my camera tripod, at ISO800. I then stitched them together. I was surprised how easy it was. Thanks for your comments, I realise I need to work on my light curves etc. I'm still learning how to use curves. I only just found out today that the cannon photo software has a user friendly curve adjustment tool. The other problem is with uploading files to the web. The origional stitched files can be 100Mb. It takes a lot of detail out of the images when they are reduced to 1024x768. Also, thanks for the idea about the 2" light pollution filter. I never thought of that for the camera lens.
  9. Had a go at some panoramas this morning around my house. I've stiched them together with Microsoft ICE. Had excellent clear skies in the very early morning between 5 and 6am.
  10. I've been playing around with Microsoft ICE. It's really easy to make a mosaic with it. I Just had a go at stitching a second image to the origional photo to widen the final image.
  11. Nice blog, interesting read. Keep up the good work. I really need to start a log, all I've ever kept are photos of observations. The only other evidence is my blog on this site, which could vanish at any time I suppose.
  12. Nice pcture of Jupiter and the moons. I never seem to get the Moons into focus, they always seem to be slightly out of focus. Shame about your lighting problems, hope it gets sorted.
  13. I'm afraid so, never had much luck to the North.
  14. Caught a shot of the Soutern Sky tonight over the village. Makes a change to have clear skies all around the house.
  15. 30sec Exposure ISO1600, f5.6 Took this earlier in Jan, just converted it to JPEG. Unfortunately, there's a huge 24/7 cement factory North of my house causing a lot of light pollution, so I can't get the best images to the North.
  16. Thanks, I checked the settings last night, tt was actually a 3min exposure, ISO800 f5.6, lens set to 18mm. I screwed the camera to the top of the telescope and tracked with a single axis drive. It took a few attempts and some patience to get the speed of the drive correct, but it was worth the effort.
  17. Managed to get a clear couple of hours tonight before the clouds rolled in. Had to stop when Mars started to rise as the clouds defeated me.
  18. Impressive sketches, they would put anything I sketch to shame.
  19. The dreaded cloud has returned now I've turned away from the BBC, but I'm squeezing out as many stars as I can.
  20. Thought I'd take a quick shot of Venus tonight as it sets.
  21. Thanks for the kind comments.
  22. Thanks Hopefully in the future, I can improve on one 30 sec exposure.
  23. Great clear skies tonight. Managed to get my first clear shot of the Orion Nebula. Pretty chuffed I finally managed to get a shot.
  24. Just had a look at the Baadar Solar Continuum Filter and some images on the web. The sunspots definitely look sharp and clear with this. As with everything in this hobby, all depends on cash. Good Luck.
  25. I think FLO caters for pre-made filters on their site for 12" scopes.
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