Solar eclipse help

[Twiggles]

Mods, if this is the wrong area please move!

Ok, so more or less been given the green light at work to set up a scope or two to watch the eclipse and allow other interested people to view. Now, I have a skywatcher 130m and my daughters skywatcher 705 mercury as well as one modified xbox webcam and an unmodded one. Work have also said I can use a large screen SMART monitor to try and create a big screen live field. This would allow me to have one telescope broadcasting to the screen and one for people to look through if they so wished. Problem is that putting the xbox cam in will not give a whole view will it? So is there any way of using the unmodded one to accomplish this?

Be really interested in ideas of accomplshing this as well as any other ideas to help people and maintain interest.

Cheers!

[JB80]

You could try to get, beg, borrow or steal a newer dslr camera with video and feed that to the screen, it should cover the whole disc.

Maybe.

[DazC]

Hi Twiggless, sorry I can't offer any advice but, that's a really good idea.

I hope you manage to pull it off and get clear skies.

Good luck.

D.C

[Vega]

Any standard webcam which can have the lens taken off should work. The problem is fitting it to your scope. You would need to either get an adaptor (plenty online) or use an old 35mm film canister as a bodge job. As jarrod mentioned, a DSLR with movie mode is a good solution. You would need a DSLR adaptor / t-ring to attach to scope. A third option is eyepiece projection with a point and shoot camera in movie mode. For all these options you would need the software to talk to the cameras too. Which ever way you intend to do it, I would definitely do a full test run on a sunny day to check you can achieve focus, software works, sun size etc. I'm not sure about the Xbox cams with your scopes, best way is to just try it next time it's sunny.

Good luck!

[Scott]

As mentioned, a dslr would be the best option for fov. As a word of caution, be extremely careful wwith solar viewing (as apposed to using a cam). If things go bad with a camera, you lose a camera. if things go bad with an ep, you or one of your mates lose an eye and I'm not sure many insurance companies wil pay out workers comp under these condtions. make sure all the finders are removed, solar film is extremely well fitted (i'd tape it on securely) and rather than people looking through the ep. try projecting an image onto a piece of card. 

I'm not trying to be a wet blanket and I'm sorry if I'm telling granny how to suck eggs, but I don't think I could live with myself if I was responsibble for blinking a mate.

[Twiggles]

Thanks for the replies so far.

Vega, xbox cam is already modded (one of them anyway!) but having viewed it on the moon before I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get the full sun in the fov. I have previously used it though to show live views of the moon to neighbours, so I know in principle I can show at least something.

auspom, yeah definitely don't want to risk anything, will be making sure everyone is aware NOT to look at the sun. Big screen should be good, though a seperate scope for people to get a slightly better and less grainy image might be nice. I know I need to get the solar filters well setup and secured. I'm planning to just use the smaller aperture (ie leave the main end cap on and have the solar filter fitted to the smaller central obstruction), so I can have a number of filters ready for the day should I find one damaged. I'll also be in work early to setup and make sure I am happy everything is safe before people arrive.

Maybe a couple of pinhole projectors would be another idea?