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Cheap Chinese usb 2 Cameras


GeoffB

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Hi

I know that astrophotography is really expensive but was just checking that well known auction site and came across this weird thing I presume its not going to be that good but wondered if any body had tried it. Its called a ttx650 eyepiece camera, I presume its a copy of a colour chinese built thing wich is meant to be able to get quite good number of pixels in sounds like it works on both uk and us hd screen resolutions. I dont generally trust things from these post but was actually browsing at meade goto scopes when I saw this advert lol. I am currently thinking of doing a butchers job on the kids xbox camera since they have gone for the kinect nowadays.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/0-91-1-25-31-7mm-Full-Metal-USB-2-0-Electron-Microscope-Telescope-Eyepiece-HoT-/361393052598?hash=item5424b45bb6:g:U8QAAOSw37tV~nmN

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I must admit i am still using a variety of computers but have not gone for win 8 ir 10 yetas i have older nikon dslrs as well as teenagers who i dont want using my computers. Not having the latest OS discourages them lol

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When you factor in the cost around £10-14 alone for a 1.25" adaptor for the xbox makes this half the price in comparison.

Not sure it mentioned if it has an IR filter on the lens or if it comes naked and it is up to you to fit one.

Is the 1.25" nose threaded on that camera?

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Thanks for the response kat,

your really tempting me to jump in and buy it.

I did not factor in the nose cone to the equation makes it seem even more tempting, as if it does work that puts it at only £15 over my initial out lay it is also 1.3mp and not 0.3mp so possibly even better value. From the write up on an OZzy forum I saw it got mixed reviews but that seemed to be an older model as they talked about only being 0.3mp. Also I dont trust my really fat fingers to do a good mod job. As stated earlier I am more of an academic creature rather than a handyman.

I might bid on the one that is up for auction its even below that price and is in Essex.

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For the price it might be worth a punt but does not mention if compatible with Windows 7 8 or 10

It does say, Windows 98, 2000, & XP. 

That is it. Might end up with just a lump

of metal for £30. If U can find the wright

drivers , for it. Best of luck.

Steve.

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Personally I'd advise you not to buy this unless you don't mind throwing 30 quid down the drain at all....

It is a "electronic microscopy eyepiece", with a very low chip sensitivity. It is available in China for under 20 quid and it won't be any better than the traditional webcams you'll find here at a similar or even lower price. 

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I'm not sure I'd risk a punt on this camera without having an idea of what sensor it uses.  The fact that there's no mention of it working on anything later than Win XP suggests that it might be something fairly old.

James

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Hi thanks for all your input, I have been trawling amazon and found an eSecure 8meg webcam and wondered if this would be a good candidate for moding as its only 2 quid plus postage and I know overloading a small ccd\cmos with pixels can create other problems but buying that and the housing would still come in quite cheap and a project could provide mewith a high pixel count pictures which in photography usually means better photon collection. I know astro is a lot different to normal photography so am not jumping too quickly. The link to the product is http://www.amazon.co.uk/eSecure-Microphone-Windows-Notebooks-Facebook/dp/B0041LK8NI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1445261105&sr=8-2&keywords=laptop+microphone+webcamsorry for being a big pain but I am hoping to get some dso picture and play rather than just planetary shots as I have trawled most of your lovely pictures and am fired up.

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I'm wondering if this is compatable with the Video For Linux 2 (V4L2) standard, which is INDI compliant. I've recently upgraded to AstroDistro (a Linux Mint Variant) so I can use Kstars and Ekos. However my old Opticstar CCD's don't have a LINUX/INDI driver available and despite some effort I can't get them to perform well with WINE. I guess I'll be looking for a new set of Cams (planetary and DSO) to use on the LINUX system - anyone any suggestions for mid range cams that might do?

P

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There's no way to know if this camera will work on Linux I'm afraid.  If it's a UVC camera it would be, but there's just not enough information on that web page.

All the ZWO ASI cameras work on Linux, as do the Imaging Source and Skyris planetary cams.  The QHY5L-II does, though the QHY5-II is a bit ropey.  I have a few others working too.

James

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I use my asi120mm in Linux, my DSLR also talks to Linux via gphoto.

I'd like to point out that high pixel count doesn't always mean good image in Astro terms. The size of the pixels is very important and with a high mega pixel webcam they are likely to be very small on a tiny chip. When you think about it this makes sense as the lens on a webcam is tiny too. A DSLR has a much bigger lens and a sensor to match. The larger pixels on the large sensor will gather more light than the smaller ones. There is also pixel scale to consider but that is a whole other topic.

/Dan

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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There's no way to know if this camera will work on Linux I'm afraid.  If it's a UVC camera it would be, but there's just not enough information on that web page.

All the ZWO ASI cameras work on Linux, as do the Imaging Source and Skyris planetary cams.  The QHY5L-II does, though the QHY5-II is a bit ropey.  I have a few others working too.

James

Thanks for that useful info. I recently got sick of Windows after a "bad" service call when a battery failure on the obsy PC convinced the "Genuine Windows" software that my very legal copy of Windows was "fake" - so I decided to switch over to "Distro Astro". It's very good, but I'm still looking for some cams that will work with the new setup.

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Thanks a lot, i am learning a lot in this thread you guys are reminding me of the decision to jump very quickly from a pint and shoot digital back into SLR once they became available. And as a NF mount user I even was able to use my prized Nikon lenses again, pixel scal pixel size etc is a brilliant debate but as you say not really the topic for debate here lol.

Geoff

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Thanks for the response kat,

your really tempting me to jump in and buy it.

I did not factor in the nose cone to the equation makes it seem even more tempting, as if it does work that puts it at only £15 over my initial out lay it is also 1.3mp and not 0.3mp so possibly even better value. From the write up on an OZzy forum I saw it got mixed reviews but that seemed to be an older model as they talked about only being 0.3mp. Also I dont trust my really fat fingers to do a good mod job. As stated earlier I am more of an academic creature rather than a handyman.

I might bid on the one that is up for auction its even below that price and is in Essex.

By the way Geoff, windows 10 is a  way for Microsoft to learn all about you and build a portfolio of you in there data base, (they say for 'marketing reasons') to make things easier for you and more accessible, mmmm.

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Thanks a lot, i am learning a lot in this thread you guys are reminding me of the decision to jump very quickly from a pint and shoot digital back into SLR once they became available. And as a NF mount user I even was able to use my prized Nikon lenses again, pixel scal pixel size etc is a brilliant debate but as you say not really the topic for debate here lol.

Geoff

"Pint and shoot"? - well I know you meant "point and shoot" but it was amusing...

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I am happy you liked my Freudian slip, a pint would be good for some of the things I have had to suffer for Astronomy and Photography.

A pint would not go amiss as we are having yet another 100% cloud cover tonight, That makes 7 days on the trot since I got my new gear to test last week.

Great watching if you can.

Geoff

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