Webcam Advice

[DeepThought]

Hi

I'm all over the place trying to decide which webcam to get for planetary and lunar imaging with my 127 mak.

I do currently have an Xbox cam which I have self modded which gives some pleasing results but as with all attempts at astrophotography I am left wanting so much more.

The trouble is that there seems to be no easy choice for webcam imaging any more. The SPC900 was clearly the way to go a few years ago, but I simply refuse to hand over £70 or more to someone trying to make an easy buck on eBay for one.

Then there's the cheaper dedicated astro webcams like those made by celestron. I can see the appeal of these but they're even pricier than the shysters on eBay for roughly the same thing as an SPC900.

That leaves the option of buying one and modding it myself, I'm happy to do this but it seems to be a bit of a minefield as to whether the camera will be straightforward to mod and then suitable for strapping to a telescope.

So with all this in mind, and working to an as yet undecided budget, on kit that is just about suitable for use with a webcam, what would you recommend?

Cheers

[hobsey]

I recently got a 127 mak.

I have ms lifecam cinema webcam ready for modifying and a ready made adapter.

With the way the weather is going, its going to be some time before I give it ago.

Sorry I couldn't be much help but its an option you can look at as the webcam has got good reviews.

[lensman57]

Hi

I'm all over the place trying to decide which webcam to get for planetary and lunar imaging with my 127 mak.

I do currently have an Xbox cam which I have self modded which gives some pleasing results but as with all attempts at astrophotography I am left wanting so much more.

The trouble is that there seems to be no easy choice for webcam imaging any more. The SPC900 was clearly the way to go a few years ago, but I simply refuse to hand over £70 or more to someone trying to make an easy buck on eBay for one.

Then there's the cheaper dedicated astro webcams like those made by celestron. I can see the appeal of these but they're even pricier than the shysters on eBay for roughly the same thing as an SPC900.

That leaves the option of buying one and modding it myself, I'm happy to do this but it seems to be a bit of a minefield as to whether the camera will be straightforward to mod and then suitable for strapping to a telescope.

So with all this in mind, and working to an as yet undecided budget, on kit that is just about suitable for use with a webcam, what would you recommend?

Cheers

Hi,

I am not going to pretend that I have the answer for you but as I started this hobby about 9 months ago with exactly the same gear as yours I have only one advice. Start saving and buy the best and the most sensitive dedicated planetary camera that you can. I have wasted more than my fair share of money chasing bargains or buying computer webcams for modding which incidentally is nothing more than removing the lens and disabling the sound and a few LEDs. The MAK is a great planetary telescope but at F11.8 it is not exactly the fastest scope on earth which means that in order for the camera to capture a large number of frames rapidly and efficently @ f11.8 it has to have a very sensitive chip. This was the only reason that SPC900 got so popular, the chip was too good for it's intended purpose. There are a number of popular options available from £200.00~£450.00 and some better ones also can be used for some basic DSO imaging (up to 15s exposure) on the brighter of the DSO's and guiding once and if you start imaging DSOs. The mono chiped cameras are about 30% more sensitive than the colour versions and this is very significant when it comes to imaging the planets as the files either AVI or Fits are a lot smaller than the ones with the colour information and therefore can be downloaded very quickly to obtain a very fast frame rate, the extra sensitivity also means that a much smaller gain can be used with much less noise in the final capture.

Regards,

A.G

[leelee970]

you may want to look at this site (not recently updated). You never know you may find a bargain on Ebay and others sites.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/molyned/web-cameras.htm

Lee

[hoops86]

Like you i got a cheap webcam and was not very impressed. i got a logitec 5000 webcam already modified for pretty cheap on ebay. Waste of money tho used it twice.

After a lot of consideration and advice from dudes on here i went for the scb2000 cctv camera....All in cost about 70-80 quid to get it up and running. Its early days and im still very new to all this but it does seem to be much better than the cheap webcam. Maybe once i learn more about it i will feel i can justify paying the £150+ for the dedicated cameras but for now this suits me fine.

Cheers

Chris

[JamesF]

I'm not aware that there are any genuinely good options in the sun £100 bracket unless you go for the SPC900 or similar old cameras with the same sensor. The modded Lifecam Cinema is ok and may in fact perform pretty well if you have gobs of aperture to throw at it, but there seem to be precious few others.

The SPC900 looks expensive at £60 or £70 (and I think it's a daft price to pay), but it's not really profiteering; it's just market forces at work. Same as if you happened to own anything else rare that lots of people wanted. The price goes up. If you're lucky you sometimes find astronomers who want to sell to another astronomer without really caring what they get for the camera, but in the main you're stuck with competing with what someone else is prepared to give.

There are a whole range of cameras around the £100 to £150 mark, but we seem to see very few images from them posted here. I don't know if that's just because people don't buy them, or buy them and then aren't happy with them. I suspect the former as I've not seen huge numbers for sale second hand. Unfortunately it does mean there's not much experience to draw on when looking at buying one yourself.

Beyond that there's the likes of the ASI120, DFK21, some of the QHY cameras and so on.

I wonder if the cheapest option now isn't to look for a second hand colour QHY5 or something like that, but you're still into three figures in all likelihood. Alternatively there are cameras such as the Firefly MV that can be found on ebay for relatively low prices, but they are mono.

James

[Ludd]

I'm thinking of getting one of the ZWO planetary cameras, in which case I'd have an SPC880 going spare at cost (I paid 6.99 for it when morgancomputers first started selling them).

[DeepThought]

Thanks for the replies so far, as I suspected there is no consensus of opinion like there was in the good old days.

Given that we're heading towards quite a few poor years for planetary work, and in the absence of any clear candidate, I think I might just need to steer clear of imaging for a bit longer. I don't really have the gear for it anyway and spending a fortune on a camera when my mount isn't up to the job would be a bit like putting rocket fuel in a Morris Minor.

I know what I'm like, I'd never be satisfied with an "OK" image, before I knew what happened I'd have remortgaged the house to fund my habit.