focusing webcam ?

[Charlie_132]

Oh okay. I just don't understand how I focus on a distant house, then I can see it through the eyepiece, telescope doesn't move atall, put the webcam in and see nothing on the screen, just white, not a hint of colour even when moving the legs slowly from extended to closed ... That's the thing that's annoying me at the moment

[Tribal-Wolf]

I don't know where you are charlie or I would take a look at it. I am quite prepared to take at look at your webcam for you as I had the same one not so long ago and had made a few mods on it. If you are not near me you can send it and I'll have a look. If you get nowhere feel free to PM me.

[Mr TamiyaCowboy]

Oh okay. I just don't understand how I focus on a distant house, then I can see it through the eyepiece, telescope doesn't move atall, put the webcam in and see nothing on the screen, just white, not a hint of colour even when moving the legs slowly from extended to closed ... That's the thing that's annoying me at the moment

is there a brightness setting ? if your bang on target and a pure white screen your overexposed in shot. you need to adjust the brightness down

check and see if you have an exposure setting : if yes maybe adjust this lower down. i had a white out and found i had to lower my brightness right down. i also had to adjust my exposure to a lower mark

[Charlie_132]

I managed to find venus through the webcam! Got a pic but its nothing special, trying to get saturn but proving difficult

But ... Now I know the webcam can pick up planets and it will pick up anything my telescope picks up, its just a matter of time and practice before I get the hang of it, I ll be posting good quality stuff after a week of clear skies!

[Tiddles]

Woohooo, at last!!!!!!

I was almost at the point of giving up and pointing you in the direction of a local Astro society for help.

What finally resolved your issues?

[Tribal-Wolf]

Phew!

[Charlie_132]

M not sure, I just focused on venus and put the webcam in not expecting to see anything and looked on the screen and there sat venus, I ll hopefully be able to get it in good detail when we next get a clear night.

Is it possible to get photos with a webcam as clear as I can see it when I look through the scope with my eye ?

Venus looked amazing through the 130p, just wish I could get a pic how I saw it. Anyone got a big collection of 130p images ?

I was planning on getting some photos of the moon but the clouds have rolled in and hidden venus juputer mars saturn and the moon, not best pleased, pray for clear skies soon!

Thanks for everyones help in this thread

[Tiddles]

Very glad and relieved that you got it sorted.

Was it retracting the truss tubes a little to obtain focus that got it resolved.

Your webcam should give images similar to what would be seen with a 6mm EP. There's not much detail to pick up on Venus.

[dav1d]

Fantastic news. Post some pics when you have them.

Exactly what did you do? I think all the 130p flextube tips and tricks should be gathered up into a basic how-to guide for beginners.

Congratulations Charlie. You're practically an expert now

Sent one-handed from my bath using Tapatalk

[Charlie_132]

Yep it was moving the poiles that finally achieved focus, and this means I will finally be able to show other people what I can see through my scope without sound like like a nutcase!

Dav1d, have you got any photos of venus (as your more expirenced then me) I could only pick up a white circle with one flattened edge (when in the scope it was a nice cresent shape which was glowing nicely)

[dav1d]

Nope. Venus is over the other side of the house when it's up and the neighbours might object to me taking my scope into the street and pointing it just to the left of their chimney for extended periods

I've been doing this for just over a week total.

I 've had a go at mars, but there's too much glare coming of it & TBH I'm not quick enough to change the camera's config before it's off the screen.

Here if you want a look. But prepare to be unimpressed.

I expect we will both improve with time & practice and I hold out great hopes for Saturn & Jupiter

[Tiddles]

Mars, Jupiter and the Moon with my webcam.

Mars is *fun* isn't it Dav1d.

Mars 1.bmp

[Charlie_132]

Could we start a thread for our 130p photos ?

I'm quite lucky as I can view most of the south and north from the back garden and all of the east, to view venus I have to go into my mums bedroom and put it on a dressing table and pull the net back, works ok though, just looks weird being as I'm on a main road so it looks asthough I'm hiding from people when I look through the scope!

I'd show you my photos I took of venus tonight but they are nothing special ... Its pasically just like a fat D at a angle ... I ll share them when I get a good quality photo though

[dav1d]

Nice idea. Here's a blurry pic of what I think are the Lunar Appennines

Anyways. Cloudy night. Easter tomorrow. So off to bed...

[Charlie_132]

I think it would get a lot of views and help beginners on what to expect from a middle range telescope, just a matter of getting enough pictures to start a thread. Do you have any of saturn ? Why is saturn so hard to focus on but venus was very simple ?

Was that moon photo taken tonight ? The moon is hiding behind cloud cover where I live .. Soo annoying!

[JamesF]

To get decent images of most things you'll need to take hundreds or even thousands of frames as an avi and then stack them using something like Registax.

Venus isn't too bad a target right now though I'm not sure how much longer it will be viable for. Last time I looked at it a few weeks ago it was a bit over half full IIRC. Mars is relatively easy in terms of position, but can be quite tricky to get a clear image of. Saturn I think you will struggle with. Whilst the rings are nicely open at the moment it's not going to get very high in the sky over the next few years and therefore it suffers from a fair bit of atmospheric turbulence most of the time. You may well find that you can only get a very small image. I'd not be surprised if the only people getting really nice Saturn images this apparition are those who are using larger scopes for their imaging.

James

[brucen]

Glad you managed to sort it out. I think my scope has the same specs even though it isn't a flex tube.

[Charlie_132]

Can someone explain how to get a very good quality image ?

I need telling what stacking is and how to do it/how many fps to set, how many photos to take ect ...

[Freddie]

Have a look in the imaging section as there is plenty of info there.

Basically you want to get an AVI with a couple of thousand frames in it then load this into Registax (or similar prog) that will take your AVI and add your frames together (stack) and take the best ones to give a sharper image. You then adjust further using wavelets to get a sharp image. Bit of a quick and basic explanation but should at least point you in the right direction just have a read through the imaging section and do a bit of googling. Glad it is all starting to come together for you now.

[Charlie_132]

so i need to record a video rather then take photos ? then put it in registax and that will make it good quality ?

[Tiddles]

Registax will not make it good, you need to make it better by using registax. There are a lot more settings in registax than there are in Sharpcap!!!!!!

Read a few of the posts in the imaging section and try some tutorials. I can mail you a few avi files if you'd like to give it a go.

[marshy123]

Sorry to post and disappear; busy couple of days.

WcCtrl is found by just googling WcCtrl which will show you the main site. The link is right at the bottom of the main page. If you can't see it, the download page is here:

Download WcCtrl

I've not linked directly to the file as I'm not sure that's seen as good etiquette. Hotlinking rings a bell (Mod's - is it best to avoid doing this?)

As for your other problems, try again during the daytime to start with. The way I did my initial webcam test was to focus on anything like some trees or a busy hillside.(CAREFUL OF SUNLIGHT) with a 25mm eyepiece. Just make sure it has detail, not sky or cloud as you can't easily tell when these are in focus. When you have something in the 25mm EP, lock off your RA and DEC and make sure nothing is moving. Check the view again. If you still have something there then move up to something like a 10mm EP, Focus this (note which direction you have to move the focuser - in or out - as this is the direction you will need to focus for the webcam. Now, if the sharpcam with nosepiece is anything like my SPC900nc with nosepiece, your webcam will be in the same ball park as a 6mm EP. Remember we went from 25mm to 10mm... now we're going for the (approx) 6mm of the webcam. When you went from 25 to 10mm you will have noticed that you could see less stuff (narrower field of view) but that what you could see was more magnified. With the move from 10mm to 6mm this will happen again. Even less stuff (narrower field of view) but even more magnified. To ficus, keep turning in the same direction as the move from 25mm to 10mm.

If you get this sorted and get focussed then we're on the way as that means it's likely to just be gain and brightness. Let us know how you get on with this and we'll take it from there.

I know you are keen to get cracking on Saturn but with an effective 6mm EP Saturn is gonna be really tough to pin down. Take your time and stick with something like the moon till you get confident with that then move on.

I too am impatient about shooting Saturn having viewed it with the naked eye but I figure it's been there for a while already and it will be back again!

[Charlie_132]

My webcam doesn't show up on wcctrl for some strance reason

[Charlie_132]

Also I am desperite to get some good photos

Clear skies forecasted for tuesday at 4am .. Tempted to set my alarm .. Is it worth it ?

[marshy123]

What happens in WcCtrl when you click the connect button? Ideally your cam would be listed. If not, do you have a built in cam (laptop?) or even a junk old usb one lying around you could try to connect? This would at least tell us that WcCtrl is OK.