Xbox Livecam Mod (Cliff)

[laaj19]

Hello

Tha thanks for the instructions above.

I have just finished modding a Xbox cam do I put this strength into the scope.

Do I not use any eps at all.

What sort of images can I expect.

I'm using a sw 200pds i just don't seem to understand how it works without ep

How does it get close to the targets.

Cheers

[laaj19]

Hello

Tha thanks for the instructions above.

I have just finished modding a Xbox cam do I put this strength into the scope.

Do I not use any eps at all.

What sort of images can I expect.

I'm using a sw 200pds i just don't seem to understand how it works without ep

How does it get close to the targets.

Cheers

[Tiddles]

The xbox cam gives a similar view to using a 6mm EP. You use the focuser to bring the image into focus on the CCD therefore no EP required for further magnification. To increase the size of the image, you can add a Barlow lens to the focuser before fitting the webcam.

[Stargazing_Cliff]

A image shows awesome power of xbox cam

Image took using modded xbox cam with ps3 lens simple mod that can be done.

startrailing looks awesome for diy cam wide view.

[Stargazing_Cliff]

Stuff i leave outside all time modded xbox cam with attached wide view ps3 lens

also prinz astral 500 spotting scope with ps3 cam attached to end

taking timelapse snap shots of skies

using software

Deskshare webcam monitor 5 also Webcam Surveyor.

diy automatic stargazing as all i do every couple of hours go through images see what captured and make some cool startrailing images (latest thing got into) just also check for any ufo's

[Tiddles]

1st attempt at a moon mosaic with the Dob and mod'd xbox cam.

[Stargazing_Cliff]

1st attempt at a moon mosaic with the Dob and mod'd xbox cam.

Thats superb moon imaging.

[Tiddles]

I'm reasonably happy but dont like the banding between the mosaic panes. I think it maybe that I took too long over the capture and field rotation becomes an issue with altaz mount. If the skies stay clear I'll try again this tonight. For the mosaic I used iMerge. ICE does a better job but cant stitch all the panes together

[nickdud]

I used a dob of hammerite('dob' is of course the drip off the end of a toothpick, tekmanikal term!) To cover my led's. Works fine

(Been cloudy ever since tho haha)

(I'm on my Blackberry, I may be some time;) )

[Gina]

Been cloudy here every night since I got my ST80 guide scope!

[JamesF]

I was hoping to use an Xbox camera as an all-sky cam, connected up to a SheevaPlug. I've written some code that can pick single frames off the video stream on a regular basis, but it looks like either the UVC driver is not as stable as it might be or the webcam doesn't like being connected up for long periods of time. After a while the camera appears not to respond to the USB bus and even unloading and reloading the driver won't help. The only way to bring the camera back to live is to unplug it and plug it back in again.

I'm now trying on an Atom-based notebook (the SheevaPlug has an ARM processor) in case it's some sort of architecture-related problem. If that doesn't work them I might have to change the code so it grabs images continuously, just saving those it gets after a specific interval has passed, but doing so would be a little irritating as one of my other plans for this setup was to make an "AnalemmaCam", to capture a still showing the position of the sun at noon GMT every day for a year. It seems somewhat wasteful to capture every frame for an entire year rather than wake up at just before midday, turn the camera on, grab a frame and then go back to sleep for 24 hours.

James

[Stargazing_Cliff]

I was hoping to use an Xbox camera as an all-sky cam, connected up to a SheevaPlug. I've written some code that can pick single frames off the video stream on a regular basis, but it looks like either the UVC driver is not as stable as it might be or the webcam doesn't like being connected up for long periods of time. After a while the camera appears not to respond to the USB bus and even unloading and reloading the driver won't help. The only way to bring the camera back to live is to unplug it and plug it back in again.

I'm now trying on an Atom-based notebook (the SheevaPlug has an ARM processor) in case it's some sort of architecture-related problem. If that doesn't work them I might have to change the code so it grabs images continuously, just saving those it gets after a specific interval has passed, but doing so would be a little irritating as one of my other plans for this setup was to make an "AnalemmaCam", to capture a still showing the position of the sun at noon GMT every day for a year. It seems somewhat wasteful to capture every frame for an entire year rather than wake up at just before midday, turn the camera on, grab a frame and then go back to sleep for 24 hours.

James

I use old windows xp sp3 works fine with me xbox cam for very long periods of time installed microsoft drivers for cam like possibly cud be problems with newer systems maybe.

I noticed with xbox cam u can only installed 1 cam for each windows for another xbox cam have to remove drivers from windows.

not sure if stable with linux like .

[JamesF]

It may well work ok on Linux if I do it a suitable way. It's possible the Windows and Linux drivers interact with the camera in different ways and the camera sulks if left without communication for long periods of time. I'm now re-writing my code to grab images all of the time and just save the one it has after some specific interval has expired. I'm not discounting a driver bug though, as there appear to be lots of reports of problems with the UVC camera driver (the one used for the Xbox cam), but my gut feeling is that if unloading and reloading the driver doesn't help whereas unplugging and replugging the camera does, then it's more likely to be a hardware issue.

James

[Stargazing_Cliff]

It may well work ok on Linux if I do it a suitable way. It's possible the Windows and Linux drivers interact with the camera in different ways and the camera sulks if left without communication for long periods of time. I'm now re-writing my code to grab images all of the time and just save the one it has after some specific interval has expired. I'm not discounting a driver bug though, as there appear to be lots of reports of problems with the UVC camera driver (the one used for the Xbox cam), but my gut feeling is that if unloading and reloading the driver doesn't help whereas unplugging and replugging the camera does, then it's more likely to be a hardware issue.

James

Yeah cam does work on linux stable aswell

i use linux couple times imaging moon.

for my wide sky cam use windows

[JamesF]

Well, I have some code running now that takes constantly streams images from the camera, but only saves one every five minutes. That's been running most of the day and seems to work fine.

At the moment all the camera options are set to auto however, and the camera seems to be quite slow to reduce the exposure time in response to brightness changes in the landscape as clouds cover and uncover the sun. Either its that or the auto white balance is too slow. Anyhow, progress is made, but more tweaking is required.

James

[JamesF]

To illustrate the problem, here are a couple of images I've captured:

James

[Stargazing_Cliff]

JamesF you using cam as just normal sky cam using orginal xbox lens ?

all im getting at moment is just clouds rain.

[Stargazing_Cliff]

Thats all im getting at moment too sensitive to light and it's cloudy & raining.

lens i use is lens from old ps3 cams with 2 lens settings.

i used to use orginal xbox lens i found ps3 lens gives wider view.

was bit of mod to get it in focus as best as cud like.

with cam have to set settings to highest screen resolution cam can handle from yuy2 setting for day use and change exposure level little bit.

[Stargazing_Cliff]

Mite create some kind filter for sun light sometime using inside of black stuff from old floppy disc or inside of 35mm film container or snap dvd in half that can be used as filter read up somewhere or bit welding visor glass somet to protect cam from sun light sometime during daylight.

[JamesF]

At the moment I'm working with a completely unmodified camera, because I've removed the IR filter from my modified one and it makes exposures a bit of a pig to get right.

I've been tinkering with SharpCap and it looks like the auto-exposure setting is too high for outdoor images. It needs winding down a fair bit to get decent images. In SharpCap I found that turning the exposure as far down as possible and then stepping up one worked for me (for some bizarre reason, the shortest claimed exposure time yields a brighter image than the next one up).

I have a somewhat tedious client job on at the moment that involves a fair bit of sitting around, so I'm currently writing some code that should allow me to change the exposure settings in my capture program to see what works best. Unfortunately the range of exposure values that SharpCap offers (presumably what the camera driver tells it is available) doesn't seem to bear any relation to that the camera's firmware claims is available, so I am rather making it up as I go along...

James

[Stargazing_Cliff]

James you have to show us some demos of software your creating

[JamesF]

I'm happy to make it available to people to play with on a sort of "alpha test" basis once I have it resembling something that won't fall on its backside at every available opportunity. Using the Linux V4L2 interface seems to be something of a black art. Thus far I've managed to work out how to turn off the auto-exposure setting, but I'm either setting the manual exposure time to several minutes, or I've broken it some other way

James

[stonemonkeylives]

Got two of these from eBay for under a tenner , attempting the mod on the first one at the minute, got as far as destroying the LEDs and just about to order a webcam adapter. But I have a question for those who removed the base of the webcam so you just have the cam and the wire, how the theory of the Big Band and evolution did you manage it? Mine seems not to want to come off , at all. Any help with this will be greatly appreciated, and I'll post pics of the finished product once its up and running.

[JamesF]

Pull off the rubber pad that runs around the underside of the base and you'll find some screws you can undo to remove the bottom half of the base. Remove that and there are a few more, as far as I recall. If you're the kind of person who keeps his hammer collection closest to the workbench, you can probably break the foot off the cable at that point, but should that idea offend your finely-honed engineering senses then as far as I recall if you unplug the cable from the circuit board on which the camera sensor is mounted you can thread the whole lot out of the base and replace it without breaking anything.

James

[stonemonkeylives]

Thanks will give it a look.

sent from Gherkin Muncher mk .III (commonly known as a Galaxy S2)