Prime Focus DSLR v Web Cam

[Langy]

A couple of nights ago the skies partially cleared for a little while at around midnight at the front of my house. So I decided to get the scope out. Setup in my front hall with the tripod set at its lowest point wedging the door open (had to do this or I wouldn't see anything with the spread of the legs ). I locked on to the moon and this was also my initial test with the cheapy MD.

Firstly I went for the xBox Web Cam. It cost me less than £5 new delivered. Took about 10 minutes to modify and with a proper bought adaptor fits the scope a treat when you have found the subject through the EP. I took around 2 - 3 minutes of video with the webcam where having the MD made things far easier. I then used PIPP to center the moon within the recorded video and then process in Registax.

To me the result is OK for a first attempt. The edge craters seem a little over sharpened but the central detail seem to have been washed out. I think that this all points down to the initial recording settings where less exposure may be better.

After the webcam I placed my EOS 300D DSLR into the EP with a 2x Barlows (have to use this or I can't get to a focus point  ) and again tracked the moon well. A few test shots to work out the best exposure which slightly went quicker each time until I settled on 1/200. I proceeded to take quite a few images. These were then converted into an AVI with PIPP to center the images and then processed with Registax. Now for some reason I couldn't get the wavelets to work fully on the whole image so I then opened the TIFF file in PS CS5 and altered the levels there to produce the image below. I think there were around 38 images stacked for this one. Now the whole image looks a little out of focus, especially noticeable on the left edge craters, but I have a much higher resolution image and the contrast and actual detail within the image is far better. 

[Leveye]

Besides a bit of a focus issue and maybe some less expensive optics used it look great!

The term "Prime focus" to me is a camera attached to the focusing tube of say a Newtonian with nothing in the optical path but possibly a coma corrector to flatten the field some. Once you introduce a magnifying lens element like a barlow i don't think it applies anymore but thats just me. I moved my primary mirror to a midpoint for the perfect focal length for the focuser and no issue with not being able to reach focus no matter the set up. Keep at it and possibly try a Televue Barlow i have had excellent results thus far with mine. Look up!

[todd8137]

It's tricky to get good contrast and brightness ,maybe a little work on your focus , but cracking images all the same I always under expose my moons images wether it be with the camera or the dmk cam I find it's easier to apply contrast and brightness to the moon than the opposite way round ,also when sharpening any image leave this till the very end of your editing never at the beginning and be careful with wavelets Other than that your well on your way keep ya head up there great

Pat