astrocam from mini camcorder

[Lux1]

I have a Vivitar 615 mini camcorder. My wife gave it to me as a small Christmas present. However, the thing takes awful videos and worse photos. And low light indoor shots are a no.

Yesterday I dropped it whilst having a clear-out. The front lens was loose and behind this is a modest looking ccd chip. That got me thinking. Its got an sd card and a usb port and a small preview screen and is nice and compact. Perhaps I can image planets without dragging the laptop up the garden and depriving the wife from facebook!

So, I held it at prime focus agaist my focuser today aimed at a nearby chimney pot. Behold, on the preview screen was a highly magnifed jubilee clip on the chimney cowl in great detail. So, photos to come, a bit of DIY as well, and the clouds are even breaking outside....

[smt1988]

i brought the same camera just before xmas it was terrible i threw it in bin because argos would not give my money back

[Lux1]

With it's original pinhole lens you're right it's awful, but once I had removed that and exposed the chip then it performed as good as a cheap webcam in the scope. The acid test will off course be tonight, if the moon is out. By the way what does an IR filter do in relation to modded webcams etc?

[Lux1]

Well I taped an old 1.25 eyepiece adaptor on and took my first capture of the moon. This is one single frame, unprocessed.

The image has quite a red tinge, I suspect due to the lack of an IR filter. It also clearly caught the oval shape of Saturn, albeit overexposed and very small, barlow and IR filter required next.

[Stargazer33]

That looks like a pretty fair effort. Especially for a camera that you accidentally dropped!

You are right that the red colour cast is due to the missing IR filter. With some capture software you can adjust the hue, brightness, contrast, gamma and gain etc to get a more natural image.

Bryan

[Lux1]

As promised some photos of the camera.

I have fitted it into my finderscope for testing. All seems to work well, I just need to find or make an IR filter now as the original one from the camera is too small.

[Stargazing_Cliff]

Mini digital video cams work pretty cool have allsorts iso/exposure settings to play around with.

i modded somet similar using a traveler dv 3010

just removed all lens from camera and made tubing to fit eyepiece on telescope even made powerpack as mine chews up batteries.

[Gina]

That's very interesting Nice job

[Lux1]

I've looked at your thread Stargazer_Cliff, it was partially my inspiration! And thank you Gina, I am on such a tight budget due to redundancies and having a family, but it is so rewarding to build something yourself.

I have just made a servo battery free focuser, - it works superbly with no vibrations at high powers. I won't post it as so many others have done the same thing, I would only be covering old ground.

[Gina]

Oh yes, I like building things myself too - as you might have guessed

[Stargazing_Cliff]

Hows the cam working any good you have to put up some vids if make any with modded cam

added couple vids on me thread with my modded mini cam no computer needed

thats project was working somet where dont need computer

but could have options to use pc with cam or use RCA A/V cable with easycap

i think me mini cam took some cool video of moon will have to stable cam more like cos kept moving telescope hehe.

http://stargazerslounge.com/showthread.php?t=187521