Live viewing on a laptop with a webcam

[lufchigh]

Hi

First post, and I need your help J

I am a relative newcomer to astronomy having promised myself I’d treat myself to a telescope for years. After much reading of reviews and looking at sites such as SGL, I decided to get a Celestron 127SLT…I was keen to get a GOTO scope right from the start and this one seemed the best that fell within my price range. I’ve not been disappointed.

One of the things I learned early on was to allow my eyes to adjust to the dark and then avoid light at all costs. So I put a red light in my garden shed (which my wife says looks very suspicious) where I keep much of my kit, and use a red led torch of course. I live in an area with no street lights, and only a few houses dotted around and so I have access to some very dark skies indeed BUT I still have problems because of various neighbour’s lights ruining my night vision:

1. One neighbour has a very sensitive security light that switches on if a mouse crosses her drive.
2. Another always seems to have an endless stream of cars arriving and leaving whenever I choose to get the scope out with their headlights criss-crossing my garden as they do so.
3. But worst of all is my next door neighbour and her kids…every time the go upstairs they turn their landing light on which seems to light up my entire back yard! I can’t really expect them to walk up their stairs in the dark of course.

How do I combat this sort of thing? I just want a “back-yard” hobby that I can turn to when the mood (and the sky) suits me, and I thought living where I do would be ideal but it seems that no matter how hard I try I can’t avoid these random lights! Just as I start get my eye in and can turn that faint smudge into something that actually looks like a galaxy on goes a neighbour’s light and I’m right back to square one.

Is live streaming to a laptop the answer? Not for astrophotography but for simple viewing. I have a telescope that I can directly control from my laptop, so I’m thinking if I can connect my telescope with a webcam as well then I could do everything from there without the need for keeping in the dark. How effective is this for DSO as well as the Moon/planets? I’m not expecting stunning HD quality views of course…I just want to be able to take what I see when I look through the eyepiece of my telescope and view it on my laptop instead, then my neighbour’s lights and other distractions won’t trouble me anymore.

I know that for webcams/astrophotography CCD types are what’s recommended but it seems to me that these are geared towards photographing Planets etc…will these cameras work for live viewing as well, if not what’s best for live viewing (including the more popular DSOs) , and the all important question, how much would suitable webcams cost? NB I appreciate that there will always be limits, I just want something that will give me a reasonable view of the night sky (on my laptop) beyond just looking at Jupiter and the Moon!

Astrophotography is something that I would probably get into at some point but for the moment I just want to look at what’s out there.

Thanks for your help and advice.

[todd8137]

What you want is a security type cam people are use Iin them to view with one of these but if you have light pollution you might be as well to let you neighbours no they interfere with you view and could they tilt the light down check the link out

http://www.modernastronomy.com/camerasAstroVideo.html#Mintron72S85HP-EX

Pat

[Langy]

General webcams are really only of use for planetary and lunar, also the CCD cameras you will notice that they are usually taking very long exposures in minutes to capture DSO, so I would guess that you wouldn't get much on live viewing.

If the light comes mainly from one direction then why not try and create some form of a shield on that side. As to the cars coming and going, as long as they are not hanging around then closing your eyes or looking away from the light can also be of help.

I have a neighbor 2 doors down were there security light comes on a lot when I'm in my garden. I just turn away and usually move behind my shed for a couple of minutes until it goes out. This will often go off at least once every 30 minutes.

[nicks90]

take a look at the video astronomy forum further down this page - mallincams and samsung sbc low light security cameras could be your answer. They basically take a continuous video fo the object and automatically stack (integrate) a couple of seconds worth of the images to display a devent image on the laptop/tv/display and can reveal some quite astonishing results!