beginners webcam help please

[nora nooby]

Hiya, sorry if this question is silly but I am learnign a lot just by reading forums but need help on this one. I have managed to lay my hands on a flashed philips webcam. Am i right in saying that I can use it as it is for taking video type footage of planets and convert the footage to images which I can stack but if I wanted any kind of milky way type images I would have to get it modded to enable long exposure? and then take lots of these 'long exposure' shots? if not can someone tell me the adv of getting it to do long exposure? thanks

[steelfixer]

The long exposure mod will enable you to take images of deep space objects.

Simply put it will turn your web cam into a DSLR type camera.

Insted of running at say 5 frames per second it will run at say 1 frame every 5 seconds.

This will enable you to image very faint object with far more detail.

I hope that makes sense.

[nora nooby]

Hi, thanks. I understand that but my web cam hasnt been modded its just a flashed philips spc type. I understood-maybe wrongly?- that I didnt need to have it modded if i just wanted to do avi's? I thought that was only if i wanted to take single shot long exposure?

[steelfixer]

You are correct in your thinking.

A flashed SPC will take brilliant AVI's of the planets.

Just take the AVI using something like Sharpcap and then stack the AVI in something like Registax.