russ

Gawd..some superb EP cases here........makes mine look like a charity case:icon_eek:

Don't worry, yours is posh compared to mine at the moment. Mine was put together by Steptoe & Son.

SO50

It does look a bit ex-military

But the basic tube is an M603, which is simply awesome. Owned one from 2003-2006 and still possibly the best scope i've ever owned.

Only caveat would be when they go wrong getting them repaired is a nightmare and expensive. The focuser broke on mine and i spent 14 months trying to source a replacement part....then gave up and sold the scope 'as is' for peanuts

Odd.. happens with both of mine.

Not tried W7 but Vista works fine. Someone else mentioned it earlier in the thread and said if you drill down in W7 it does actually list the SPC900.

This is the FOV from the 2.1mm lens ont the SPC880 .. plan is to mount this on the end of the SCT in the obs to keep an eye on the sky... and see when I need to pop out to tweak the dome...

wow that's a scary picture. Looks like the house is about to be ungulfed in a huge blast Had to double take to see they were trees and not a blast cloud.

Ran out of those caps Russ so had to drop that from the spec. The caps are of course in stock at FLO and have been for some weeks. It was more a way of creating awareness of the caps as they are a fairly unique item as far as we know. Quite a few went out with the white caps which to be honest no-one really wants.

I highly recommend the cap, brilliant keeping the filter in place and screwing the cap into the filter......great idea!

Have to highly commend you on the quality of the threads as well....so smooth.

Just want to say that the adapters from Wayne are first class. The screw in dust cap is awesome, have that screwed into the filter. Nice work Wayne!

I was going to suggest not bothering with the backup stage in my tutorial but thought better of it just in case things went wrong.

I've been playing around with Craterlet and the camera is working well. Hopeing for a first go on Jupiter tonight. Like Wayne, it will be with an Orion Europa 150. Lets hope the weather is right.

Nice one Sam, all up and running.

Some of the large chip (1/2") CMOS webcams are great for lunar work. Unfortunately i cannot remember any model name and numbers.

5 arrived today and 5 flashed no problems !!

Cheers Russ , if we ever meet i owe you a pint

Great news....5 cams to play with. I'll be at SGL6 if you want to get me a packet of crisps (i'm not much of a drinker)

I suppose as long as the old drivers work, all should be good.

That's correct for the max res. The drivers are probably the same ones carried over from Vista, hence the date. I think Philips have some newer drivers on the website?

Mine arrived this morning - superfast delivery from Somerset to London. I see the Morgans site now mentions this as an astronomy cam (with modification).

Price is creeping up too.....now £6.99 + del

Another mod page for the SPC900NC:

astropetros.com - SPC900NC Long Exposure Modification

Does this tutorial help at all:

ash's Astro Pages

It's for the Toucam Pro but the board should be the same (i think). There is a list of parts needed.

Hopefully you can DIY and have a deepsky/guider camera for peanuts.

Excellent, thanks John, answered it for me.

Running Windows XP is critical for the flash process as the SPC880 won't work with Vista or Win7. Once flashed to a SPC900NC, the camera will work with Windows 7.

These cams are identical to the SPC900NC and excellent for planetary/lunar work. Obviously not a patch on an Imaging Source DMK21 but they cost over £300 by the time you add a filter wheel and filters. But this is still a very capable camera and a bargain at £6. There is some work needed (hence this thread) to get up and running as a SPC900NC but it takes hardly any time at all. A couple of minutes at the most.

Paul, your are not missing out at all. Both cameras are the same, except the 880 has a flashy suit.

copy the downloaded file to a folder on the PC, plug in the camera and when Windows wants the driver, direct it to the folder with the inf file. Job done!

I've been kicking myself too for not ordering the nosepiece and filter earlier

I've just ordered from Wayne's website.

This nosepiece fits but there is also one offered by Wayne which looks nicer for the same money but i haven't got a link:

Astro Engineering AC414s 1.25" low-profile nosepiece to webcam lens thread (ToUcam Pro SPC900NC)

And this is the filter, although someone may know of a better one:

ScopeTeknix ScopeTeknix 1.25" Infrared & UV blocking filter

Hi all,

I installed the camera first using the INF file from the Morgans site. The camera is recognised as a Toucam 750K.

I then followed the instructions for flashing a Toucam Pro II 840K to SPC900NC:

Philips SPC900NC uncovered

PLEASE GO CAREFUL AND READ THROUGH ALL INFO ON THE LINK ABOVE. THIS MUST BE DONE USING A WINDOWS XP SYSTEM!

Download WcRmac and the SPC900NC binary file. Install WcRmac and then copy the SPC900NC binary file to C:\Program Files\TWIRG\WcRmac\binary\8116

Start WcRmac, click the webcam tab at the top, choose DS Interface, select the camera in the window and connect. Click the Binaries tab and you should see the SPC900NC binary you copied to the 8116 folder earlier. Click the 'Get current and save as' button to back up the current binary file. Then highlight the new SPC900NC binary and click on the 'Load into cam' button. Close the program once done. Unplug the webcam and install the SPC900NC driver:

SPC900NC/00 Philips Webcam SPC900NC VGA CCD with Pixel Plus - Philips Support

Plug in the cam, windows will find the device and installs. Job done!

But please follow the instructions on the other website as they know what they are doing.