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Philips SPC900NC

Memory Bliss

By Memory Bliss
in The Astro Lounge

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JamesF

JamesF

Posted
Posted

How do the Lifecams compare to the SPC's do you know?

There's no LX mod for the lifecams, so they' don't really have any potential as a "poor man's DSO imager" unlike the SPC. The planetary imaging mod is also less straightforward on the Lifecams.

For planetary imaging I know some people have said the modded Lifecam Cinema is better than the SPC. I just don't find myself in that position yet. I've always struggled to get decent images with the Lifecam whereas I'm starting to do pretty well with the SPC (even if I do say so myself :). One of the problems from my point of view is that there's no independent brightness and gain control on the Lifecam. They're linked together somehow. It's also not possible, AFAIR, to turn the gamma setting off altogether and the white balance seems to behave a bit oddly, sometimes giving a distinctly pink cast to the image,

That said, I've only tried the Lifecam on Saturn and Mars this year, both when they were past their best (though the SPC was still producing good images, particularly of Mars) and only with my 127 Mak. It is entirely possible that the Lifecam may produce better images on a brighter target or larger aperture.

If you'd like to have a look for yourself, I have some Mars images available here (all SPC900; there were no Lifecam ones worth showing):

http://www.tanstaafl.co.uk/solar-system-images/mars/

And some SPC900 Saturn images here:

http://www.tanstaafl.co.uk/solar-system-images/saturn/

And a montage of Lifecam Saturn images with an SPC900 image for comparison here:

http://www.tanstaafl.co.uk/2012/05/lifecam-saturn-montage/

James

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Memory Bliss

Memory Bliss

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Nice images James, especially the Mars selection...I've only managed to get one decent of it earlier this year. The Saturn's are looking too, I noticed you were having some issues with the gain, I keep mine at 50 but its still quite noisy..any lower and I can hardly see it.

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JamesF

JamesF

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Yes, Saturn has been really tricky this year with smaller scopes. Balancing gain and noise is not easy. Hopefully by the time it comes around again I'll have the obsy built and I can break the C9.25 out of storage and try with that.

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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For planetary imaging all you need is a nosepiece and ideally an IR or IR/UV cut filter. Fitting it is really quite straightforward. For DSO imaging you also need to do some electronics which is not complex, but moderately demanding thanks to the small areas for making connections and the fact that you have to completely disassemble the camera and risk breaking it :)

James

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  • 2 weeks later...
Rihard

Rihard

Posted
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They say the price is RM 153. What the hell is RM? I can't find it on the conversion websites.

If you go to google and type 153 rm in gbp it will convert it automatically (without having to find a conversion site) mentioning the full name of the currencies :)

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JamesF

JamesF

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Does anyone have the link to modify for DSO handy please? I am good with solderign irons! :)

yesyes (Chris) wrote up an excellent piece on his spc900 mx mod. I'll find a link to it in a moment.

James

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Rihard

Rihard

Posted
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Since this thread is a die-hard, I will jump in again.

JamesF (and others) Is it worth modifying this cam for Long Exposures if I have a dSLR and a film SLR too ?

What kind of results can be achieved and are there any interesting examples? I did try to google for something,

but I have found only things that are not very encouraging. Pics welcome :D

I'm still awaiting for mine to be delivered so I'm open to options.

Cheers.

Riky

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JamesF

JamesF

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I'd struggle to see the point of the LX mod (other than for the fun of doing it) if you already have a suitable DSLR to use. The only advantage would be that you could have a completely unfiltered camera sensor with the LX mod, whereas the DSLR would always have the IR filter in place unless you modded that.

James

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Teslar

Teslar

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I've seen some very impressive results from the SPC900nc unmodified and LX modified. Not seen another webcam that can rival it especially for LX that's why they are so sought after. It's also led many to try other webcams with varying results some think they are as good because you can grab images if the moon and planets quite easily. But I've seen nothing that matches the quality and range of photos I've seen taken with the SPC. I'm still experimenting my my LX modded cam as its new to me as is both my scopes thats coupled with cloud has restricted my chances to try and match what I've seen produced elsewhere

Sent from tapatalk

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JamesF

JamesF

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The SPC900 sensor is very sensitive which is why it stands out for imaging fainter objects. If you've got a nice bright image of the moon, or of one of the planets in a large aperture scope, I think the sensitivity isn't such a major issue and other cameras do start to compete. I agree that some of the DSO images created with it are very impressive. They perhaps don't come up to the standard of cameras costing a few hundred pounds, but on the other hand it was once possible to buy the SPC900, add the nosepiece and do the LX mod and still come out with change from £30. It's easy to look at, say, Olly's images and think that the SPC ones are poor by comparison, but at the time they became really popular it was pretty astonishing that you could spend £30 and start imaging DSOs at all.

I've LX-modded one of my SPC and I've been waiting a couple of months to actually be able to try it out anywhere other than on my desk :(

James

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Rihard

Rihard

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:(

This morning I found a letter from the Customs...

Asking me a proof of purchase and whole price of the good + delivery, so that they can kindly calculate how much duties and fees I should pay before handing the item to me...

Now that's 68 euros + 23 % VAT + Unknown Import Duties + 6 Euro Post Office Fee, that's gonna be a great deal.

post-17725-0-25091100-1341484328_thumb.p

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ChrisThePuma

ChrisThePuma

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:(

This morning I found a letter from the Customs...

Asking me a proof of purchase and whole price of the good + delivery, so that they can kindly calculate how much duties and fees I should pay before handing the item to me...

Now that's 68 euros + 23 % VAT + Unknown Import Duties + 6 Euro Post Office Fee, that's gonna be a great deal.

post-17725-0-25091100-1341484328_thumb.p

Gulp..... :huh:

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JamesF

JamesF

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Now that's 68 euros + 23 % VAT + Unknown Import Duties + 6 Euro Post Office Fee, that's gonna be a great deal.

Hmmm. That's going to work out not much different from getting one on ebay. At least yours should be new though.

James

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