SPC900NC still the best webcam?

[mpeniak]

Hi Guys

I was not around for a while and therefore I need to double check that SPC900NC is still the best affordable webcam for planetary work. Or do you know about any better ones? Or any website where I can get it for cheapiest price please?

Martin

[George]

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/astro2/Q2006/WEBCAMS_UNDER_THE_SPOTLIGHT.htm

Ebay is prolly your best bet.

[blinky]

Thats a bit heavy for me! You should ask KK as he got a nice new USB2 megamixel webcam from Ebay for a very reasonable price. His images certainly looked good....but then they always do

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Actually, its a Logitech Fusion from Amazon. Four times as many pixels in the same area as a Toucam (roughly) and just as sensitive (ish).

I'll be posting some lunar images once the moon gets it's act together and goes up a bit. And I'm hoping to work out how to clean the chip. (cotton buds don't work, but they do mess up the camera).

Kaptain Klevtsov

[GazOC]

I'm far from being an expert but IMHO the Fusion is better than the Phillips on Lunar work but is too noisy for planetary images. If you look at the decent planetary images taken with the Fusion they are from a small percentage of frames in a large stack which means (to me) that the images really needed to be processed by an expert to bring out the image. If you look at Gary H's site theres amazing images there that use 20 images out of a 1000..you'd be looking at using 700-800 for a Toucam.

[mpeniak]

Hi Guys

I found this: http://ghonis2.ho8.com/fusiontest4.html

http://ghonis2.ho8.com/fusiontest5.html#update

It seems that fusion is USB2 and it should give us 7.5 fps at highest resolution using fast codec http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley.edu/benrg/huffyuv.html

I am going to get fusion...decided now

Martin

[GazOC]

That was the site I was referring to. Check out the stack sizes on his planetary images...

[mpeniak]

Yeah I have noticed. I think he has selected the same number of best frames from each stack so we don't really know how many frames he got, or did I overlook something

Have you used the long exposure mode Gaz already?

Martin

[GazOC]

I couldn't get the LE to work Martin, I read somewhere that the newer models don't support it....

Some of that guys planetary images use only 20 frames out of 2000!!! My guess is he really is a top notch image processor but also that the camera is very noisy and he's getting a lot of bad frames.

[mpeniak]

Thats only 1% I hope it won't be that bad. Anyway the differencies between images taken with toucam and fusion look remarkable. USB2 with twice as higher resolution as toucam should really improve things.

Well I have ordered all the stuff I needed including, project enclosure box, t-ring and adaptor and once I get my HEQ5 I will give it a try on Mars I suppose.

Martin

[mpeniak]

Anyway, does fusion need IR-blocking filter please?

Martin

[GazOC]

At the highest resolution ~1280x900 and 7.5 FPS I found my laptops harddrive couldn't keep up and I was dropping around 50% of the frames even with the compression codec, so I bought a cheap 10 Gig HD and an external enclosure and that has no trouble.

You'll need a program called Open Capture to make the most of the camera, K3CDD doesn't allow the Fusion to use its higher resolution settings.

[mpeniak]

K3CDD doesn't allow the Fusion to use its higher resolution settings.

It does but it needs to be one of the latests versions. You need to chose right capturing device so you can adjust resolution. I tested it and it does work indeed.

Martin

[GazOC]

Ah, my mistake. My older version wouldn't go over 640x480 so started using Open Capture.