Webcam with long exposure capability?

[fragmonkey]

Hello. I have been doing some research and am looking to get into astrophotography. However, I am on a severely gimped budget.

It seems to me my most affordable option would be doing a webcam+scope setup. I am looking to initially do solar/lunar/planetary photography. I have been following this popular guide for the Microsoft Lifecam Cinema HD: http://ghonis2.ho8.com/lifecam/lifecam1.html

However, that camera has no ability to control exposure time.

Can you guys recommend a webcam that can do longer exposures? I would like to do so for some potential DSO photography. I understand that this is probably stretching the limits of webcam astrophotography, but I would like to have the experience of seeing DSOs up close, however the quality, without spending a fortune on equipment.

Thank you for your time.

TL:DR Is there a webcam that can do DSO imaging (via long exposures, stacking, or some other means)?

[Stu]

I believe the SPC900 can be modded for long exposures. I vaguely remember YesYes (a member here on the forum) posting a thread on it. If I can find it I'll post a link

Stu

[Stu]

That was easier than I thought :-). here you go.....

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php?/topic/109153-SPC900-LXmod-yesyes-style-;-)/page__view__findpost__p__1080810

Cheers,

Stu

[Physicist13]

webcam/vid is not suitable for DSO due to the v high Read noise. that's not to say its not possible but dont expect v good results. they are ideally suited to planetary and solar as these are bright objects and youre aiming to capture the brief moments when the atmosphere is v steady. Look for CCTV cam suppliers and chips that have "senseup"..these do on-chip image integration so equliv exposures of several seconds are poss. Also pretty cheap!

[astromerlin]

I had a good couple of years playing with my modded SPC900LX on DSO's, and helped me on the astrophotograpy learning curve. Back then they were cheap to buy but now they are hard to find and expensive.

My advice would be to invest in a DSLR, a 300d,350d can be bought for less than an SPC900 these days and will also give you better images and a larger field of view.

[m37]

Yeah, I've seen a couple of low end canon dslr bodies go for about £70 on ebay. I sold my SPC900 for more than that earlier in the year and it wasn't even LX modded!

[JamesF]

Have to agree. I have an SPC900 that I LX-modded, but there are very few others for which mods exist and they're all hard to get hold of these days. It may well be possible to pick up a 350D for less than you could get an SPC900 for (and certainly an LX-modded one). You could potentially even pick up a faulty model as there are a number of faults that don't affect a camera's functioning for astro-imaging. I'm assuming that you must have a laptop/other computer available otherwise you'd not be asking about webcams.

One of the other problems with webcams is that the field of view isn't large. That means that many DSOs just won't fit on the sensor and plenty of others are fairly demanding of tracking accuracy unless you have a very short focal length telescope.

If you can stretch the budget I'd say go for a used 450D or 1100D. The addition of live view (which the 350D doesn't have) can make life easier.

You don't say what scope you have, but that's also a factor to consider. Some just aren't that great for DSO imaging, and others may need modification.

James