Webcam questions

[Pauly]

I currently have in my possession 2 SPC 900's. Both have been modified with 1.25" adapters and one has software tweaked for optimized colour. What I want to achieve is to have one camera for DSO's, one for planetary work and one for adaptation for polar aligning. Now, I also have a Sony A300 dslr and the necessary bits to attach it to the tube. So, the question is, can one of the SPC's double up for planetary and DSO's leaving one for polar scope. Once modified the polar scope cam will physically not fit the focuser. I like the idea of using Sharpcap for alignment. I used it last night to good effect. I'm not sure the A300 is up to the job. I read a lot about people having modified DSLR's but I have no idea what mods are carried out or why.

Any advice or suggestions will be very gratefully received.

Thanks in advance.

[brantuk]

A webcam basically needs the Long Exposure mod to do dso imaging. There are one or two other mods to go with - all described here:

Astronomiser - Automated Astronomy and AstroImaging Solutions

Hope that helps

[Pauly]

Hi Brant, thanks for the link. It does help explain the use of DSLR's. I've done some reading in the meantime and it seems that I can modify one of the webcams and incorporate a switch which will allow me to toggle between normal and LX modes....sweeeet! That leaves the other one for aligning jobs and keeps the Sony for terrestrial and possibly some wide field astro.