Just getting started

[2stops]

I have just brought myself a cheap webcam for my telescope so that I can try and get images of the planets. I tried to get a picture of the Moon, I know an easy subject, but I cannot get the Moon in full only a part of it. Is there anything I can use to obtain a full Moon, no pun intended

[steppenwolf]

It is all a matter of physics I'm afraid! A larger sensor or a shorter focal length telescope are required to achieve this. A typical focal reducer would still not achieve a sufficiently short 'apparent' focal length either. Webcam sensors are rather small but you can turn this to your advantage by taking several different images that overlap at the edges and creating a higher resolution 'mosaic'.

[lensman57]

I have just brought myself a cheap webcam for my telescope so that I can try and get images of the planets. I tried to get a picture of the Moon, I know an easy subject, but I cannot get the Moon in full only a part of it. Is there anything I can use to obtain a full Moon, no pun intended

Image-0_2013-10-15.JPG

There are some 0.5X reducers designed to work with the very small chip of a webcam, these usually fit on the nosepiece of a webcam or in some cases can be directly mounted on the webcam itself, the decent ones are about £25.00~£30.00. You need to do some research to make sure that you can use them with your device. Do not expect optical quality nirvana from these though but they do reduce the focal length by 1/2 and give a larger FOV.

Regards,

A.G

[baggywrinkle]

What 'scope do you have?

[2stops]

What 'scope do you have?

I have a Skywatcher Startravel 102 Skyscan, scope to teach myself

[baggywrinkle]

Yes, as has been said the issue is the imaging chip size, small, so you cannot get a complete shot of the moon.

You could spend money on a reducer and also reduce the exposure for the image. If you do not want to use a reducer then you will have to stitch images together.

[lensman57]

I have a Skywatcher Startravel 102 Skyscan, scope to teach myself

If you have a DSLR then use that instead for the Moon shots, the large sensor is much more suited photographing the super bright Moon than the meager webcam. Moon often gets neglected in the imaging section of any forum that I ventured in but  it is one of the the most beautiful objects of the sky. The late Patrick Moore loved it and it was his speciality, he spent a lifetime studying this object.

A.G

[Pete Presland]

absolutely the moon is a great target for newcomers to imaging. is your moon image a single frame or a stack of AVI's?

[2stops]

Thank you all for your advice, the picture I posted was a single shot, so I will try some multi shots and paste them together