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Moon Last Night with modded xbox 360 webcam :)

Rihard

By Rihard
in Imaging - Lunar

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Rihard

Rihard

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Hello folks,

few days ago I've modded my xbox 360 webcam as per Cliff's instructions.

Yesterday the seeing was pretty good so I went to the country side with my Explorer 200P, my MacBook Pro and the modded camera. I took some shots of the moon through Photobooth (I just freshly installed the operating system on my mac so I had no other software).

The webcam works out of the box on mac without the need of drivers or setup.

I'm pleased with the results as these are not stacked images, they were just "point and shot" :D The camera seems not bad at all to me. :icon_salut:

I have to try registax on windows as Saturn and Mars were overexposed on photobooth.

Clear skies ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...
manofscience

manofscience

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TzuiRiky - What did you use to capture this with?

Ive just bought the xbox cam and have a macbook running Lion.....I've got the camera to work in photobooth, but there are no options to change frame rate or anything like that so Im giving up with it....

Ive tried using imovie (as I assume it would have more options) but it keeps telling me i can only capture from the built in isight camera - it's not recognising the xbox one, which is obviously wrong as photobooth is recognising it

Is there any other software for mac I can use to capture effectively?

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Rihard

Rihard

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TzuiRiky - What did you use to capture this with?

Ive just bought the xbox cam and have a macbook running Lion.....I've got the camera to work in photobooth, but there are no options to change frame rate or anything like that so Im giving up with it....

Ive tried using imovie (as I assume it would have more options) but it keeps telling me i can only capture from the built in isight camera - it's not recognising the xbox one, which is obviously wrong as photobooth is recognising it

Is there any other software for mac I can use to capture effectively?

Hey manofscience :)

These are single snapshots taken with photo booth :confused: I've only tweaked some levels with Preview :( I've also taken some videos, no need to change the FPS or Exposure, they would still be good for stacking. If you need to tweak (or block) the exposure, you may download the software "iGlasses" that will control most cameras supported by the mac.

I've also tried Sharpcap, that is running on Windows XP through Parallels. It works like a charm, but some cameras do not show all the options (including the FPS and other settings) if running through the virtualization software like parallels. Or at least, it didn't show them with the XBox cam.

Have you modded your cam already? Have you tried to simply take snapshots of the moon or something else, or to record a MOV video and then stack it through Lynkeos? It works pretty well.

Let me know :)

Cheers

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manofscience

manofscience

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Hey manofscience :confused:

These are single snapshots taken with photo booth :( I've only tweaked some levels with Preview :) I've also taken some videos, no need to change the FPS or Exposure, they would still be good for stacking. If you need to tweak (or block) the exposure, you may download the software "iGlasses" that will control most cameras supported by the mac.

I've also tried Sharpcap, that is running on Windows XP through Parallels. It works like a charm, but some cameras do not show all the options (including the FPS and other settings) if running through the virtualization software like parallels. Or at least, it didn't show them with the XBox cam.

Have you modded your cam already? Have you tried to simply take snapshots of the moon or something else, or to record a MOV video and then stack it through Lynkeos? It works pretty well.

Let me know :eek:

Cheers

Thanks for getting back to me!

Yes, have JUST finished modding it - was about to post in the Xbox mod thread as Ive taken apart an old eyepiece and used that as the body instead of the plumbing pipe - Im pretty pleased with it :)

As Ive only just finished it, of course, there are clouds outside! I didnt realise they wern't stacked, thats pretty impressive for single shots!

Im pretty loathe to introduce windows to my machine - only because i was a skinflint and didnt get a huge internal HD - and I use this laptop for a lot of other work. If anything I might just invest in a cheap windows machine eventually.

I'll get the cam out when the moons next up at a decent time and see how I get on. Thanks for the advice!

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Rihard

Rihard

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Wow great shots. I have the Xbox live cam and a soldering iron in an Amazon box in the back of my car, I really should get on with it :confused:

Thanks. I did "Art Attack" style. Scissors, knife, a recycled plastic barrel and strong glue :) I didn't even have a screwdriver :(

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Rihard

Rihard

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Thanks for getting back to me!

Yes, have JUST finished modding it - was about to post in the Xbox mod thread as Ive taken apart an old eyepiece and used that as the body instead of the plumbing pipe - Im pretty pleased with it :)

As Ive only just finished it, of course, there are clouds outside! I didnt realise they wern't stacked, thats pretty impressive for single shots!

Im pretty loathe to introduce windows to my machine - only because i was a skinflint and didnt get a huge internal HD - and I use this laptop for a lot of other work. If anything I might just invest in a cheap windows machine eventually.

I'll get the cam out when the moons next up at a decent time and see how I get on. Thanks for the advice!

You're welcome :)

It was a big effort for me to give some room to Windows next to OS X Lion. I eventually made a small virtual hdd with Parallels and installed Win XP, it doesn't take too much space. I had no use of it so far but you never know. I might also go for a cheap dedicated Windows machine.

I was happy too for the results of these single shots, having paid something like £ 3 or 4 for this cam on Amazon :confused: . Only problem is that the camera has some kind of automatic exposure control and planets will get way over exposed, and the tool I used "iGlasses" doesn't improve the situation, as it seems to play with the already overexposed and washed out output from the camera, instead of lowering the chip sensitivity or locking the exposure. I forgot to mention that I've tried to tweak the same pictures with Adobe Lightroom 4 and they look even better :eek: If you have that software, give it a try when you have the chance to take some pics :)

If I'm not wrong, I was able to control these settings properly using Sharpcap under Windows 7. I'll check that out later.

I guess using an old eyepiece barrel looks better then my glued art-attack style result :( I'm curious to see how it looks like.

It seems we're both under clouds attack... southern Ireland is being hit by heavy showers and storms since last night :D

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Rihard

Rihard

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Good Job Manofscience :D

Stargazing_Cliff: Thanks for the information! I hope the weather will be merciful and to have some sort of tracking then, so I can even stack images :)

Thanks Chris and Telesto :) .

Clear Skies

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