spc900nc bw and lx mods

[chriscoles]

Hi all,

So I have decided to start autoguiding. I have an eq6 pro, sw250pds, and a clone of the st80. I wil try to use ascom and phd. But first I needed a camera. Thought I had spent enough on the mount and telescope so modified an spc900nc for long exposure(LX) and a mono ccd. I spent alot of time on this and thought it was worth sharing. The screenshot shows an 8sec exposure indoors with the lights turned off. I have been using sharp cap and a usb to serial converter to trigger the long exposures.

Waiting for a clear night! 

[red dwalf]

Interest ing, I also use a unmodded webcam for guiding my neq6 with phd, works a treat although sometimes I have to click on the camera dialog in phd to adjust the camera settings a little otherwise I get horriable rough horizontal lines and no stars to track,

[leelee970]

Looks good Chris.

I'll also modded mine, but never used it to guide with so I may have a try with the SPC900.

Lee

[JamesF]

You changed the SPC900 sensor for a mono one?  That must be a fair bit of hassle.

James

[leelee970]

You changed the SPC900 sensor for a mono one?  That must be a fair bit of hassle.

James

I admit when I changed mine to a ICX414 I used a very small soldering tip and big desk magnifying glass.

[astromerlin]

Nice conversion there, do post some images when you get a chance.

I've been meaning to slot an ICX424 sensor I picked up into my spc900 but have still not got around to it.

The SPC900 makes a pretty good guidecam even in if still in colour, I'm still using an earlier Philips Vesta webcam Lx modded for guiding.

[chriscoles]

You changed the SPC900 sensor for a mono one?  That must be a fair bit of hassle.

James

Yes changing the sensor was hassle, I sourced 10 sensors from alibaba.com. The trickiest part was removing the original sensor!

Small soldering iron and a new small tip + a ridiculous amount of persistence. It was fun though. My biggest worry was breaking the board as SPC900NC's are no longer cheap ~£90 on ebay. I got mine from morgan computers a couple years back for £20 or something.

[chriscoles]

Nice conversion there, do post some images when you get a chance.

I've been meaning to slot an ICX424 sensor I picked up into my spc900 but have still not got around to it.

The SPC900 makes a pretty good guidecam even in if still in colour, I'm still using an earlier Philips Vesta webcam Lx modded for guiding.

Yes I will put images up, I can't wait to use it. Actually I tried using it with PHD last night but PHD crashes! I can run it as a windows webcam from PHD just fine and it works in sharpcap. I wonder if it's something to do with the USB to serial converter?

[astromerlin]

Yes, I found that with PHD. If the LX mod is connected to a serial-usb converter there can be a problem connecting properly.

Mine has two usb cables one for the webcam and one for the usb converter, before opening PHD I disconnect the usb cable and reconnect, wait for 30 secs and then open PHD. That works pretty much all the time as long as PHD knows the correct com port number.

[chriscoles]

Yes, I found that with PHD. If the LX mod is connected to a serial-usb converter there can be a problem connecting properly.

Mine has two usb cables one for the webcam and one for the usb converter, before opening PHD I disconnect the usb cable and reconnect, wait for 30 secs and then open PHD. That works pretty much all the time as long as PHD knows the correct com port number.

Thankyou Astromerlin, that worked perfectly!  I assume PHD does some processing on the frames so I can't see images through the normal lens attached to the camera as I can using sharpcap? The way I can tell frames are being captured is by turning the gain way up to see noise.

[astromerlin]

Yes I'm sure that is true, I think PHD has a star detection algorithm so if there are no stars detected in the image you wont see anything.

After all Phd is star guiding software whereas Sharpcap is image capture.

I use WXastrocapture and if the LX usb com port isn't connected properly the software pops up an error dialog. It would be nice if PHD did the same.

[chriscoles]

So I got out this evening and in sharpcap I could do long exposures on orion nebula and it works

However in PHD If I dissconnect the LX trigger it works(not long exposure obviously) but connected I get strange patterns appearing. I should take a screenshot next time.

I analysed the LX signals from the serial DTR pin with an oscilliscope for sharpcap and phd and they are the same.

Then the clouds came in...