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ASDA £2.93 webcam


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The Asdacam mods and images are looking great folks. Just shows what is possible with a little inginuity..... (all images posted up there are great but the Mars one by Nytcam is an absolute beut!!)

Gary

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The Asdacam mods and images are looking great folks. Just shows what is possible with a little inginuity..... (all images posted up there are great but the Mars one by Nytcam is an absolute beut!!) Gary
Thanks Gary but you may not have read my text - the RH image is from Cartes du Ciel for date/time of my pics for comparison:headbang:
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Grabbed this last night & used Registax to clean it up.

Not that happy with it but it was really windy here last night and it's my first attempt with any sort of web cam so I can only improve. :)

This was unguided and straight into the back of my Skymax 102, no mirror diagonal, Revelation Astro 2.5x barlow, Baader neodymium and ND filters. Looks to me like the focus was off but it was really difficult to focus via the laptop screen and with gusting winds.

I will grab some more when the skies clear and it stops raining. :)

Bryan

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i havent had a chance with my newish one lately i was thinking of using the metal from a old eyepeice and glueing it to the front of the cam and putting somthing dark being the gaps and taping the LED, would this work? obviously remove the lens but leave the lens holder in place

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i havent had a chance with my newish one lately i was thinking of using the metal from a old eyepeice and glueing it to the front of the cam and putting somthing dark being the gaps and taping the LED, would this work? obviously remove the lens but leave the lens holder in place

Gareth, if you take a look at my ASDAcam mod pics, the rounded front facia of the camera is removable. It's stock to the main body (that screws to the back) with double sided sticky tape.

If you peel off the front facia, you get a sticky and, more importantly, FLAT surface to mount an old EP tube onto centrally over the sensor. then you can use electrical or bodge tape to black out the gaps.

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Hey, I've jumped on the bandwagon!! :( As I haven't yet got a scope, I've got it to fit my bins, however I dont think I have any software for recording, so which software would be a good way to go? cheers.

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OK - You asked for me and I'm here now ;):(

Very interesting thread and some amazing results :p Like Malcolm, I too am well endowed with a collection of webcams :D Several not yet tested for AP. eg. xbox livecam, an old TouCam and several others. I also have a few Philips SPC900NCs in various states. Then there's MS LifeCams - Cinema and Studio, both modified for AP. I've used the Cinema but the Studio only in tests.

We just haven't had the clear skies to do all this testing. In fact from the day they announced a drought in this area we have had rain every day!! Recently it's been heavy with winds to match! Absolutely horrible weather :(

Regarding Peltier cooling, I had thought of cooling the Studio as it already has a built in cold finger heat sink which dissipates heat to the casing and there's room for a small TEC. But as this camera is not suitable for LX mod and only suitable for planetary, I don't think it's worth bothering. Now the SPC900NC with LX mod is a different matter and I may well have a go at this. There's scope for a good camera there. Just another little project to go on my already very long list :p

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I ran 200 frames of a neighbours tv ariel the other day (through my scope) through sharpcap,

Ended up with a much cleaner image,however nowhere as shap as any of the individual frames,

Are there any quick pointers anywhere for using sharpcap ? as I'm almost a complete novice doing this stuff (gimme good old 35mm any day lol)

JJ..

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I picked a £1.43 ASDA Webcam up today, roughed up the front of the focuser using sandpaper then Epoxy Glued a 32mm End Stop from B & Q and he presto a Polar Scope Cam! Total cost

£1.43 Webcam

£0.99 32mm Plumbing piece to fit over polar scope eyepiece

£2.44 = Result!

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Got another session between cloud breaks tonight of 1st quarter moon, Mars and Saturn using Sharpcap - seeing poor but some results run through Registax anyway as below that include mag 10 Saturn sats - more tomorrow:hello2:

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wow that looks amazing, may try my hand at that web cam conversion thing, but how did you do it, i cannot seem to find the info, i have seen ones for specific cams, but the theory should be applicable to all.

so for example i have an old web cam (not that old i just dont use it anymore), i have a "nose piece" that i have taken from a very cheap telescope that was given to me. That is where i stop. dont want to wreck anything

advice please

Mrnumpty

:(

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Well, if you don't want to risk breaking something, find a camera you can find instructions for and use that.

Generally the idea is to remove the lens from the camera. On older models it's often mounted in a threaded mount fixed to the PCB. How you might go about removing the lens is dependent on the camera however. It might just unscrew, or you might need to disassemble the camera.

Once the lens is out then if it has a standard 12mm thread you can just buy a nosepiece on ebay or from someone who sells them online. That's generally the easiest way to ensure you get the nosepiece fitted square to the camera sensor. Otherwise you may be able to glue the end of an old eyepiece or a piece of tube or pipe onto the front of the camera to allow it to be fitted into the focuser.

Perhaps the best place to start though is to download and install sharpcap, plug in the camera and see what controls sharpcap offers for it. If the camera does exposure and gain control automatically then it's probably not going to make a great imaging camera. You really need to be able to control exposure, and preferably gain and gamma too.

James

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Nytecam- your really getting the hang of that cam, fab images!

Mrnumpty- I've converted one cam so far so not much experience but all I did was remove the lens and IR cut filter from infront of the chip and then all you need to do is cover any LED's with a bit of black tape, and fix the nose piece infront of the chip making sure that the chip is 90 degrees to the nose piece. You can use any number of things to stick the nosepiece on e.g. glue, blue tack, sealant probably would work? I used a piece of metal table leg, then drilled a hole in the end for the lens housing to go through minus the lens then stuck it in place with tie wraps.

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thanks for the info on sharpcap i can control exposure and gain but not gamma so good start, i am looking for a nose piece would this do the trick First Light Optics - 1.25" nosepiece to webcam lens thread (ToUcam Pro SPC900NC)

Hi MrNumpty, in short no that item will not suit the ASDAcam without serious modification - i know as i tried it! Please take time to check out my post here earlier in the thread for details of what's required....

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Here's crater Plato and Alpine Valley adj Mare Imbrium and [below] Saturn and Mars to same scale all from last night showing how tiny the two planets are - Mars via Cartes du Ciel for date/time.

2nd pic of more craters :(

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