First shots with Logitech C100 webcam

[Aussie Dave]

A couple of weeks ago I took apart a Logitech C100 webcam which was very simple. 6 small screws in total. 2 to remove the front housing cover, 2 to remove the circuit board from the back housing cover and 2 to remove the 2 screws from the back of the circuit board to remove the lens and IR filter which is 1 component. Then put it back together.

First light with it tonight. I wasn't sure on the webcam settings in the Logitech C200 program (works for the C100 too) but I had a half decent and surprising result. This cheap basic 1.3mp webcam can take single photos of up to 1024 x 768 pixels or wide screen (software enhanced) or video of up to 640 x 480 pixels max.

The webcam was then centered and taped over the end of a Barlow with sticky tape. It doesn't get much basic than that!

This first shot was taken with an OPT 3x ED Barlow.

The next 2 shots were taken over the end of an OPTEX 2x Barlow (similar size to a Barlow Shorty) but I removed/unscrewed the Barlow lens so it only acted as an extension tube.

Each final image was post processed with RegiStax 6 with a handful of images for each and finished off in Paint.Net (sharpen, deduce noise, contrast, brightness, curves and levels).

For those that are interested, I took a small video also of the lunar/atmospheric conditions tonight with the Logitech C100 webcam through the Sky-Watcher Pro 6" on a Sky-Watcher EQ5 with slow mo knobs (not motorised).

18 seconds, 10mb

Video 2.wmv

Overall quite happy with them for a first try and with some webcam settings tweaking, I should be able to get better results as noise levels in the unprocessed shots were quite noticable.