PHILIPS SPC900NC 880 ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY PACK

[mikinio]

hi i'm new to astronomy and wished i had found this site before i spent my money but i have paid for a SPC900NC from ebay,i was wandering if anybody has used one before or is using one at the moment,and what could i expect to capture through a SkyWatcher Startravel 102 ?

[brantuk]

The SPC900NC is the the most popular webcam used by forum members at the moment. You've chosen well. They are out of production now so folks have been getting the SPC880 and "flashing it up" to emulate the 900.

You can get great results on planets with a tracking scope - use Registax to align and stack your sub frames then use Gimp to photo process them. wxAstroCapture can be used to take the film. All three bits of software are free to download.

You can also get the camera modified for long exposure on deep sky objects - some folks have had quite reasonable results doing that though I haven't done it myself yet. You'll need a 1.25" nosepiece adaptor to put the camera onto the telescope.

Hope that helps

wxAstroCapture - Windows and linuX Astronomy Capture

RegiStax- Free image processing software

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program

First Light Optics - 1.25" nosepiece to webcam lens thread (ToUcam Pro SPC900NC)

[mikinio]

thanks mate great help was worried i'd wasted my money,looks like i have everything in place now so lets hope for dark skys

[pwalsh61]

An alternative to wxAstrocapture is SharpCap which produces good results. If you use either to produce an AVI file you can use AVIStack to stack the frames