What does LX do on SPC900?

[blusky]

Could be a silly question, so I do apologise in advance...

[brantuk]

The only silly question is the one you didn't ask lol

The LX mod is to turn it into a Long Exposure camera - so you can get snaps of dso's.

[Brent]

Not a silly question at all.

The "LX" stands for Long eXposure.

Basically, the mod allows the webcam "shutter" to stay open for longer and therefore let the CCD collect more light than normal (which is exactly what you need to get images of those faint deep sky objects such as galaxies).

It's the same principal as a DSLR camera which already has the long exposure capability built in.

EDIT: Ah, Kim beat me to it!

[blusky]

Not a silly question at all.

The "LX" stands for Long eXposure.

Basically, the mod allows the webcam "shutter" to stay open for longer and therefore let the CCD collect more light than normal (which is exactly what you need to get images of those faint deep sky objects such as galaxies).

It's the same principal as a DSLR camera which already has the long exposure capability built in.

EDIT: Ah, Kim beat me to it!

Ah, so definitely needs an auto-tracking mount, no?

[Brent]

Ah, so definitely needs an auto-tracking mount, no?

Yes, a motorised mount at least, otherwise you'll just get a blurry image. An equatorial mount is best, and the sturdier the better. Generally, a HEQ5 is regarded as the minimum although I'm using an EQ3-2 with just an RA motor at the moment. It's nowhere near as accurate due to a lot of gear error, but I'm having fun and learning a lot until I can afford to upgrade.

I took the image of the Ring Nebula in my profile picture above (it's highly cropped) with an LX modded SPC900 and a total of about 12 minutes of 15 second exposures.