Not exactly state of the art, but...

[Penjarden]

I'm chuffed to bits.

Recently purchased (from astro buy and sell)  a Mono chipped phillips SPC900 webcam  for £50.

Thought it might be OK for imaging the Sun with my Coronado PST.

Do you think this is a good idea or have I wasted my £££

Any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated

thanks

Paul

[hobbit]

My understanding is that the PST doesn't really play nice with imaging without modification due to insufficient backfocus.

[Steve Ward]

You have a fine tool there in the mono-chipped SPC900 , look after it as there are no more mono chips available to convert another one ... 

You will need to use a 1.5x or 2x Barlow to achieve focus but after that you will be up and running ... 

I'd suggest "SharpCap" for capturing video , "PIPP" for preprocessing your data and "AS!2" for stacking , all free and easy to use .

[Penjarden]

Yes hobbit, I am aware of the back focus problem with the PST,  but where there's a will, there's a way (I hope)

Steve, the Barlow is the easy way round the problem and is obviously a great way to get up close and personal , but I shall want to get some (almost) full disk shots.

So I think I may have it sorted....

I've rehoused the camera into a FLAT faced plastic container, which brings the sensor several mm closer  and also taken a saw to the Nose Piece adapter and shortened the connecting threads which has also given me a few more mm...

I think I'm getting close to focus !!

[Penjarden]

I've also done the same modifications to my colour SPC900, in order to get focus with the PST

Here's  a couple of pics to enable you to see how close to focus  I'm getting, What do you think ??

OK - OK I know I've got a lot to learn about Processing, Its a very steep learning curve & at the moment I'm at the bottom of the hill  !

First Light with Mono SPC900 - PST

Prom from Colour SPC900 - PST - (photoshop enlarged)

Cheers

Thanks for any comments

Paul

[Steve Ward]

No point in using the colour SPC in the PST , you will automatically lose 75% of your resolution by virtue of the fact that the green 50% and blue 25% of the available pixels will not register anything of the red Ha light presented to it.

[Penjarden]

That's the reason that I'm so chuffed at picking up the Mono cam.

I modified the colour one before, as it was all I had and just wanted to see if it was possible to get focussed .

I'm sure with a bit more tweaking,it looks like it may be a winner !

Paul

[Stu_2011]

Hi

Great pictures, I would be proud of those.

For reference the Atik GP works well on the PST. It only has 7 mm of back focus to the sensor which really helps.

I modified an old SCT T2 adapter and it mounts on the PST without any mods.

Will just about get a full disk in

Thanks

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I used a DMK21 (with much the same chippery as your modded SPC900), and got great results with a 2.5x PowerMate and LS35THa (quite similar in performance to a PST), especially making big mosaics. For GBP50 you cannot really go wrong. I got shots like this one:

(after quite some practice, I should add)

[Penjarden]

Thanks for the compliment... I am pleased with the shots (as a newbie) I'm sure I will get better focus in time

Wow !

Michael  that shot is REALLY  amazing!!  The detail is fantastic... how long have you been imaging ?

How many frames in the mosaic ?

I've only just started really and Like I said "I've got got an awfull lot to learn"

I hope that this £50 outlay can get me some better images, but of course its all in the processing

Trouble is now I'm gonna have to spend more money on a filter wheel and filters so I can do some planetary !