Webcams for Planetary? Is it worth three figures?

[rolpol]

Hi all, once again I have some irritating questions...

I've been toying with the idea of getting a webcam for Solar System imaging; I only have a small 'scope (Virtuoso 114) but I've been very happy with the views I've been getting of Jupiter (in the wee hours) so far. I also have been reasonably happy with the Lunar shots I've been getting with my smartphone and my Canon too. Ironically, I'm getting better images with the smartphone than with the Canon!

 (smartphone held up to eyepiece)

So my quandary is this;

Would a Webcam get much better Lunar images? (I am a bit of a lunaphile, and only get mildly irritated when a full moon washes out the rest of the sky, and I'm interested in the kind of images where the uninitiated assume I must have taken them from Lunar Orbit )

What  difference would I notice between the entry level (say, a £60 Orion Starshoot 2) and a £250-£350 cam, (such as Starshoot 5MP, or QHYCCD 5 II)?

I notice lots of posts about difficulties with software, especially drivers, for webcams? Are these issues pretty much universal?

How many images of Saturn and Jupiter would I really need anyway? Sounds facetious, but what I really mean to ask is 'do planetary imagers find themselves going back again and again to get images of the same planet, or is there generally a "done that" plateau of interest'?

Thank you for your time spent reading this

[Robp]

I have a QHY5L-iiC that I use for planetary and lunar. I tried some modified webcams (£10 range) and found them disappointing.

I purchased the QHY5L-iiC because I could use it as both a lunar/planetary imager and a guide camera and it was sub £200.

To give you an idea of what it is capable of a couple of images I have gathered using this camera can be found on this forum:

Moon - http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/222773-lunar-mosaic-11082014/

Jupiter - http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/205922-jupiter-and-grs-on-19012014/

I think the main plus point of the more expensive option for me is the FPS it can record at. if you are taking a 60 second AVI of jupiter at 10FPS you can capture 600 frames. depending on seeing less than 50% will probably be of any use to stack. If you can record at 60FPS you can record 3600 frames. You can limit yourself to much higher quality frames and still stack more frames than the lower FPS AVI could.

Another thing worth mentioning is disk space. I could eat up over 100GB in a couple of hours on the moon or planets so storage for the raw AVI's should be considered also.

Now it was quite difficult to get the QHY5L-ii setup and working on my laptop but once I got over this it has worked perfectly since. The camera has been used to guide up to 15 minutes and I haven't had any issues with it guiding.

If I were to look at the £50 mark I would go for a webcam, I think the one people usually recommend is the SPC900 but you will have to look for one second hand as they are no longer sold new. Someone else on here that has one can help you out here as I have never owned one.

As to the question on whether you will go back and image I would say that was down to the individual. Personally I do go back and image the planets and moon. The moon has lots of different areas that may interest you, you can do mosaics of the full sphere or get in close and image areas or craters. With Jupiter you can image the great red spot and the transition of the moons across the surface. I also enjoy revisiting them to attempt to improve on previous images.

I always purchase items based on the following:

• What do I want to achieve
• How much can I afford to spend

and then work out what is best to get for that budget.

Good luck

[Robp]

Its worth noting that the advice above doesn't take into account your current scope and mount setup.

If you were looking to spend £200 on a planetary camera then it may also be worthwhile looking into a scope/mount upgrade and a cheaper camera, this may get you better result than just a more expensive camera? Is this something that you have considered?

[Zakalwe]

Hi all, once again I have some irritating questions...

I've been toying with the idea of getting a webcam for Solar System imaging; I only have a small 'scope (Virtuoso 114) but I've been very happy with the views I've been getting of Jupiter (in the wee hours) so far. I also have been reasonably happy with the Lunar shots I've been getting with my smartphone and my Canon too. Ironically, I'm getting better images with the smartphone than with the Canon!

it depends on how deep you want to go. The Lunar image is good if that's all you want. But if you want more (less noise, more detail, higher levels of magnification) then the system (not only the camera) needs to improve.

Would a Webcam get much better Lunar images? (I am a bit of a lunaphile, and only get mildly irritated when a full moon washes out the rest of the sky, and I'm interested in the kind of images where the uninitiated assume I must have taken them from Lunar Orbit )

Yes and no. I am part of a thread on Facebook where someone is extremely disappointed with a Celestron Neximage and has basically said that it's rubbish. Yet, his technique has lead to a slightly out-of-focus avi with lots of drift. "Garbage in, garbage out" applies. Just buying a camera and expecting magic results will lead to disappointment. Your skills have to improve (and I subscribe to the view that a planetary cam will givve poorer results than a modified webcam unless you know how to use it. A modified webcam has much less control over the settings. But it's this very control that lets the planetary camera shine in more experienced hands).

By the way, I also don't like to call a planetary camera a "webcam". A webcam is normally a cheap USB colour camera. A planetary camera can be USB, Firewire, Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet. It can run to hundreds of frames per second. The best results are taken with mono and filters- something that can't be done with a webcam. And finally, the costs can run to over £1000 just for the camera.

The second thing to note that to get images "where the uninitiated assume I must have taken them from Lunar Orbit" you need long focal lengths. And aperture. The Lunar and planetary images on my website (link below) are far from being anywhere near as good as a really good imager can take. but even these were taken with 11" of aperture and a focal length of 7 metres.  Focal length give magnification and aperture gives resolution. The camera and telescope are part of a system and the best images comes when they are paired. A 114mm reflector will give decent images, but you will quickly run into it's limits.

What  difference would I notice between the entry level (say, a £60 Orion Starshoot 2) and a £250-£350 cam, (such as Starshoot 5MP, or QHYCCD 5 II)?

There would be some. How much depends on seeing conditions and your skill level.

How many images of Saturn and Jupiter would I really need anyway? Sounds facetious, but what I really mean to ask is 'do planetary imagers find themselves going back again and again to get images of the same planet, or is there generally a "done that" plateau of interest'?

The most static of objects (the Moon) looks differeent from night to night and month to month. The shadows of the terminator will change the view as different regions become highlighted. libration will give different perspectives on the same crater.

Two images of exactly the same crater, but each from a different perspective:

Jupiter, in comparison, changes from minute to minute. It's never the same object twice.

In summary, lots to think of. Good luck and keep asking questions.

[ronin]

Not wanting to be negative but the image via your smartphone is red/brown, grey and green - and the moon is not red/brown or green. So those colours have been added by the optics of the smartphone.

You do not need a Starshoot 5MP, or QHYCCD 5 II, many use a fairly standard webcam costing £20 to £50, equally they will not be 5Mp probably 1.2Mp. However the people that produce the good images use the appropriate cameras.

I would not put a DSLR on a scope for lunar work, you want a webcam (in one form or another) and get an output of a video, not a single shot.

It is one of those things where I can take a DSLR and a standard 55-200 Tamron lens and get some nice shots of wildlife, the guy I talk to takes his 500mm £7,000 prime lens and gets better ones.

Ultimately the equipment counts, and it is reasonable to say that for the best image of any sort you can produce all the equipment needs to be better then your capability. Otherwise the equipment is limiting you.

For lunar work and before you get any deeper into it all go get a reasonable webcam from PC World/Currys, they have loads of the damn things. Make sure you can modify it to remove the lens and will fit somehow it in the eyepiece location - there is a round one that is almost exactly 1.25" dia that fits well, it may be a HP one.

[JamesF]

I think you need to take a step back first and decide what it is you want to achieve.  To improve your images I'd suggest the next step ought to be thinking about moving to prime focus imaging and then stacking and sharpening your images.  That's a tough call with a manual dob mount though and I'd be inclined to believe that you'll not see a huge improvement unless you change something there.

I'd have a browse around the Lunar images section and see what you like and read up on how it was done, then think about how you might get to the same sort of position given your own situation.

James

[JamesF]

By the way, I also don't like to call a planetary camera a "webcam". A webcam is normally a cheap USB colour camera.

I'm also wary of this.  Many webcams are designed for video use and create a stream of data that is suitable for that.  In fact that means the data captured by the sensor may already have been compressed and some of it thrown away.  Planetary cameras (ones worth having, at least) don't do this.  You get the data frame by frame without any of it being lost.

James

[JamesF]

I would not put a DSLR on a scope for lunar work, you want a webcam (in one form or another) and get an output of a video, not a single shot.

DSLRs can be a good way to get start getting full disc images of the Moon though.  Not as good as a mosaic assembled from images created using a decent mono camera, but that is much harder work.

If you're in a position to be able to take, say, 100 shots of the Moon in relatively quick succession with a DSLR and stack them then they can produce a pleasing result.

James

[Zakalwe]

It is one of those things where I can take a DSLR and a standard 55-200 Tamron lens and get some nice shots of wildlife, the guy I talk to takes his 500mm £7,000 prime lens and gets better ones.

At the same time, a DSLR and a standard 55-200 Tamron lens in the hands of an expert will probably net a better photo than a top end DSLR and £7K lens in the hands of a total noob.

I started with a modifed webcam and got some decent shots. I still struggled a bit when I moved to a TIS planetary cam, but at least I had learned how to focus, how to get the image onto the sensor, how to stack and process. My only regret was not moving to a mono planetary cam and filters quicker. I persevered with a OSC for too long.

[rolpol]

Thank you all for your interesting and thought-provoking responses-

Firstly, I do plan to upgrade in the future, but for the time being I have to play along with the pretence that this is somehow all for the children (The Scalextric Principle, as I believe it is called), so when the children get bigger, so does the scope and mount!

Obviously as has been pointed out Ultimately the equipment counts, and it is reasonable to say that for the best image of any sort you can produce all the equipment needs to be better then your capability. Otherwise the equipment is limiting you However it's going to be a little while before I can scratch the symptomatic rash of aperture fever. A decent Planetary cam on a 114 may not be the answer, although I am blessed with comparatively dark skies. If I read you all correctly it's going to allow me to achieve better images, (I do recognise the flaws in my smartphone snapshots, and my dslr efforts too), but won't get the best out of the camera itself.

I was particularly struck by the notion Jupiter, in comparison, changes from minute to minute. It's never the same object twice, something I had barely considered due to thinking of the obvious visual riches of the lunar landscape. Another thought that's interesting me is stacking dslr images, the tracking on my mount is never going to win any prizes but it should allow me to get 100 without losing the Moon from view.

However the thought of stepping back and thinking what I would like to achieve strikes me as a red herring in some small way - what I actually want to achieve is a memento first and foremost. One of my favourite photos is of when I was first trying to get a shot of the ISS back when I knew a lot less than I do now, I thought I'd finally cracked it but the object I thought might be a space station banked left and headed for Gatwick Airport about 6 seconds into the exposure! That shot means much more to me than the technically 'good' one I took much later on. I don't want to emulate results of others, I want to capture my own experiences as best I can.

Finally, thank you all again for sharing your experiences, this is most helpful for the novice like me as, more than cash, equipment or knowledge, it is experience we lack the most.

[nightfisher]

My suggestion might be this, if ther vertuoso tracks then buy a cheap webcam, should be able to get a philips spc210 on bay for about a fiver, then you will need a 1.25 nosepiece to attach cam to scope, this should get you started with a luna cam

[nightfisher]

I see it does track, i would go with the cheap webcam, do you have win 7 laptop?

[rolpol]

Yes, and it has plenty of hard drive space too;

[nightfisher]

I would go for it, this is the cam i suggested      http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Philips-SPC210NC-Webcam-compatible-with-Skype-and-MSN-NEW-/151318320816?pt=UK_Computing_ComputerComponents_Webcams&hash=item233b4656b0

works okay for luna, and will give you a taste to see if you want to do this, £15 for a nosepiece and some free software

[SkySurfer]

Hi,

I would start with a Philips Toucam pro, there are some on the bay at the moment, that have been modded with the latest firmware to run on win 7 for just over £40, that would be a good start, you can get superb images with them and the free sharpcap software, they are highly regarded in the planetary imaging world as a good starter camera.

Just look on the web, loads of info about them, I had one and to be honest when I upgraded to a better camera, I didn't really notice too much difference for the extra £200.....but I suppose I have more money than sense sometimes...

Hope that helps

SS

[happy-kat]

Found the post I was after.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/227635-what-webcam-to-get/?fromsearch=1

[rolpol]

Thanks all, will let you know how I get on!