Xbox Livecam Mod (Cliff)

[The Sailor]

An adapter for whichever way you wish to use can be purchased from Modern Astronomy.

Jim

[Naemeth]

I thought I had answered the question on the filter and lens, I'll repeat , filter out, not required, lens off, keep as you may want to use it again. Attach the adapter by screwing the small end into the place where the lens goes, once in you place the nosepiece into the telescope in place of an eyepiece.

Jim

The lens bit (mini black plastic unit) has a thread (presumably 12mm) which is circular, has a smaller square lens, and the back of the plastic of the whole mini unit, which screws onto the circuit board, over the square chip... I really must sound at least a little thick, but surely I need this, because otherwise the circular adaptor presumable wont fit just around a bare chip...

[The Sailor]

Naemeth, sorry but I think I best let someone else explain all that is required to fit an1.25mm adatper to a webcam.

Jim

[Naemeth]

Naemeth, sorry but I think I best let someone else explain all that is required to fit an1.25mm adatper to a webcam.

Jim

Sorry.

[The Sailor]

I think the problem is you appear to have taken the whole lens adapter off, you are meant to unscrew the lens, can you tell me the name of your webcam please.

Jim

[Naemeth]

I think the problem is you appear to have taken the whole lens adapter off, you are meant to unscrew the lens, can you tell me the name of your webcam please.

Jim

Logitech QuickCam E1000

[The Sailor]

Okay, have look at a photo of it, how did you take the lens off?

Jim

[Naemeth]

Okay, have look at a photo of it, how did you take the lens off?

Jim

Took off the casing to reveal the circuit board (attached to a USB obviously) unscrewed what I think is the IR filter (it alters focus when plugged in), then unscrewed the two screws on the back of the circuit board to take the other plastic bit off. I've kept the screws, so can put them back .

[Naemeth]

By the first unscrewing, I mean just turning it, no screwdriver necessary.

[The Sailor]

So if I ask you to unscrew the lens and put the adapter in it's place, can you do that?

[Naemeth]

So if I ask you to unscrew the lens and put the adapter in it's place, can you do that?

Unscrew the first lens? The first lens (possibly the IR filter) is threaded, and goes in the plastic bit, which is threaded (probably M12 thread), so an adaptor should fit in there . I just thought you meant I needed to put the adaptor straight onto the circuit board without anything in between.

[The Sailor]

Hitting my head off the keyboard at the moment

Okay, we are starting to win, right, what might happen as with a lot of DIY on cams is you will probably have to put the board in a new case if the adapter does not fit when screwed onto the board, do you understand that .

Jim

[Naemeth]

Hitting my head off the keyboard at the moment

Okay, we are starting to win, right, what might happen as with a lot of DIY on cams is you will probably have to put the board in a new case if the adapter does not fit when screwed onto the board, do you understand that .

Jim

Yes. I understand that. Tell you what, I'll just post pictures:

(1) What holds the lens, it's between the circuit board and the lens you can twist out, it is threaded and screws onto the circuit board:

(2) The lens at the front, the lens you can twist out, this controls focussing when the whole thing is put together:

(3) Pure circuit board:

(1 on (3)):

(1 and 2 on (3) aka whole thing put together):

The housing for the camera goes on top of this, but I'm not bothered about that right now!

Sorry for all the misunderstanding, I should have just posted photos before! In addition, the photos are rather poor quality (in-built laptop webcam)

[The Sailor]

All is good, now you know what is required you should be able to get on with it yourself, will be here if you require help, send me a message rather than clog this board

Jim

[Stargazing_Cliff]

Another one from me i know some dont like it i like it

no telescope /binoculars used

I have yet to use modded xbox cam on telescope sometime for bit deep space see how far it can go since i now know how to total exposure cam with linux.

it gives kind of exposure to around 20 seconds thats from my mini laptop with xubunto

when ever i record avi at full exposure controll on the 1/33 setting level it take image into avi every 20 seconds.

i want to try get it to take pic every 5 - 10 seconds recording into avi so that way get more stuff trailing past

they be way i just have to play around with software's settings.

I be using my what ever cams have in winter when skies even more clear and freezing cold

I know may not see all of them fancey galaxy's so on but they is still some DSO objects i can view and possibly image if wanna try image.

I could do with somet that take image of view me 25mm ep gives me

amazing wide view does to me small newt telescope thanks to jim for sending me them ep's they have given me little newt a boost in super wide views.

anyone got any spare nebula filters what i could do with next or upgrade in scope size.

[sausages]

Hehe, cheers sausages, I believe you !

Appreciate the explanation either way, gonna try out reg5 now so maybe it will be useful info which I am grateful for.

Yeh dont think I'll be comfortable with photoshop until I know a bit more about what it does, and sure of what I'm doing with it. Looks to be a powerful editor/processor though, for those who can use it to its potential.

Thanks for the above post, though I always figured reg 6 had better wavelets etc than 5 but without really understanding either program I'm thinking that a quick experiment with reg5 cant hurt at this point - I kept the AVI's from two diferent sessions last week so will use those.

Let ya know how I get on...

Regards

Aenima

I managed to get some video of Jupiter with the xbox cam and Toucam on Saturday night - within a couple of mins of each other. I'm still finishing off the processing, should have something to post this evening. First impressions: Toucam is more sensitive to light, easily capturing a couple of moons - the xbox cam struggled here - to see the moons introduced far too much noise. That said, I am pretty pleased with the look of the xbox Jupiter image...... more later.

Andrew

[Aenima]

Sounds good Sausages --(Andrew, sorry)--, will keep me eye out.

Cloudy here mostly, though did manage to find two glob clusters using just finder and stellarium - thought I was never gonna get the hang of it after being spoilt by Goto techno - mount but found M13 and M92 in two hours. That was me chuffed for the night.

Cliff, those are the ones you want to be imaging, with your longer exposure times, even EP projection with that 25mm - globular clusters show up nicely using normal EP no filters needed, and prob bright enough to stack a few layers making it visible in cam.

Worth a try.....

Regards

Aenima

[Aenima]

Nameth, did you manage to get your cam together in the end?

[Naemeth]

Naemeth, did you manage to get your cam together in the end?

I'm getting a Webcam adaptor delivered from FLO (should arrive by tomorrow or Wednesday), and I'll see if that works, then I can sort out the housing for the camera (if it needs changing).

[Aenima]

Ok. nice 1. Hopefully if the lens housing will accept the thread on the nosepiece adapter it might just screw straight in, if not a little diy should do it. The xbox lens housing fits perfectly after sanding about 7mm off the end - I took one out of an xbox cam and attached it via the two little screw holes either side onto a different cams circuit board so that my adapter fitted that camera too. (logitech c310) You should consider getting the xbox as its cheap and compatible, upgrade later when you get more into AP.

Regards

Aenima

[Naemeth]

Ok. nice 1. Hopefully if the lens housing will accept the thread on the nosepiece adapter it might just screw straight in, if not a little diy should do it. The xbox lens housing fits perfectly after sanding about 7mm off the end - I took one out of an xbox cam and attached it via the two little screw holes either side onto a different cams circuit board so that my adapter fitted that camera too. (logitech c310) You should consider getting the xbox as its cheap and compatible, upgrade later when you get more into AP.

Regards

Aenima

I will see if this one works, I'm not sure where to get the xbox webcam though and I'd rather get this one to work, and upgrade when I get more into it.

[Stargazing_Cliff]

Sounds good Sausages --(Andrew, sorry)--, will keep me eye out.

Cloudy here mostly, though did manage to find two glob clusters using just finder and stellarium - thought I was never gonna get the hang of it after being spoilt by Goto techno - mount but found M13 and M92 in two hours. That was me chuffed for the night.

Cliff, those are the ones you want to be imaging, with your longer exposure times, even EP projection with that 25mm - globular clusters show up nicely using normal EP no filters needed, and prob bright enough to stack a few layers making it visible in cam.

Worth a try.....

Regards

Aenima

Mite try look for them globals noticed they west i be able to put scope out me back garden to try view them anything thats facing west less light pollution.

anything else have to view from window views. and full light pollution from street lights.

but anything south to west darker skies.

I know with 25mm i shall do sometime work on possibility a-focal lens to lens cam to take vid of what that shows or re-mod a lens with xbox cam and ep and create some kind lens that works with focuser with telescope.

i tryed it couple weeks ago it almost worked just only got half widish view so was close to creating somet i probably had imaging sensor or some lens in wrong place .

for now xbox cam imaging sensor just goes direct into newts mirrors which gives that 5-6 mm view.

ideal for moon /planets and maybe looking at 1 bright star / maybe try that linux full exposure controll through telescope towards them DSO's and luck if pick out up .

for now i enjoying nice wide views the super ep's have given me lil scope without imaging.

[Aenima]

Amazon usually have xbox cams £4.50 roughly - a quick web search will turn some up. But yeah, work with what you have - remember to have whatever you use for tubing (adapter or pipe etc.) square on so the chip is central and lined up with the focus hole on the scope.

Regards

Aenima

[Naemeth]

Amazon usually have xbox cams £4.50 roughly - a quick web search will turn some up. But yeah, work with what you have - remember to have whatever you use for tubing (adapter or pipe etc.) square on so the chip is central and lined up with the focus hole on the scope.

Regards

Aenima

I'll make sure of it .

[sausages]

OK, as promised, two images of Jupiter, one from the Xbox cam, the other from the Toucam Pro II. You can see the Toucam is more sensitive as it picked up two moons and there is more detail on Jupiter itself. It's obviously the better cam, but it comes at a cost - like the spc900nc and 880nc, they aren't cheap to get hold of, as I found out for myself . But I have to say, the xbox cam, given it can be picked up for peanuts, has produced a pretty good image and not that far off the Toucam. These were both processed pretty quickly and I'm sure with a bit more effort there and some clearer nights, the xbox cam can do even better. Based on this, I well recommend it for planetary work on the (very) cheap!

Xbox:

Toucam: