purps

I bought the Logitech C270 webcam to dip my toe into astrophotography, as I'd heard good things and it is usually a straight-forward mod. A known risk was that sometimes the lens mount is M8, not M12. And the M8 is what I received! Knowing others have faced this issue too I decided to CAD and print a solution. The files are attached here, or you can obtain them from thingiverse https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4792840 It would be better to mount to the board, and I am thinking of doing a new design which will replace the lens mount itself, but for now this seems to work well - the lip on the housing (and therefore the new fascia) must be fairly parallel to the board, as I haven't noticed any issues. Plus you don't need to remove the board for this mod. Cheers, Matt. logitech c270 astrocam barrel v17.stl logitech c270 astrocam fascia v17.stl

Hi everyone. I've been casually observing with my Sky-Watcher Startravel 80 with its tabletop EQ mount for a number of years, and have been itching to try astrophotography, so wanted to dip my toe in without spending too much money. I picked up a used Logitech C270 with the intention of buying the appropriate nosepiece to use it in prime focus, but alas, it had the dreaded M8 thread, so I decided to design and print my own (replacing the front cover). Downside of this is I have no thread for attaching filters. I am pleased with my first stab (this is the full moon from a few Saturdays ago), but the capturing process, stacking, and editing in Gimp is all completely new to me, and having now dipped my toe in, I thought I would ask those with more experience as how to take things up a notch with regards to equipment, technique, etc. Specifically..... I noticed the raws/stacked raws have this red tinge to them (although sometimes it's blue) - I assume this is due to a lack of an IR filter on the camera? Any recommendations? Regarding filters, there are so many on the market - what would be the best few to start with? I do observe planets when I can, but I have no tracking, and no idea if this 'scope and camera combination would even work with planets? I found that I had to use my 90deg mirror to push the camera far enough away to achieve a focus. I guess I could print a longer nose piece, but given that I need to attach filters somehow, would it make sense to buy a simple 1.25" extension piece and kill two birds with one stone? I have a 2x Barlow that came with the telescope, but I don't think it's brilliant. Would it be worth investing in a decent x2, x3, x5? It would be great to capture nice closeups of craters, but I guess I will need tracking at some point - could say the x3 be useful without tracking? I was surprised that the moon did not fit into the frame at prime focus, I was expecting it to be tiny for some reason (the image attached is four images stitched together in Gimp). I have seen x0.5 reducers advertised - do these effectively work in the opposite way to Barlow, and will it shrink the moon in the frame? If yes, any recommendations? Apologies for the barrage of questions, but it's exciting stuff this, isn't it!! Any and all help gratefully received. Cheers, Matt.