Webcams

[Corkeyno2]

I have been wanting to photograph the planets for a long time now. Does anyone know the best webcams I could use to capture planets? Not really that fussed about imaging DSOs. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Corkey

[happy-kat]

A budget you have in mind might help

[Corkeyno2]

Probably about 40£ is the upper limit.

[furrysocks2]

Something cheap and easy to mod. If you've got £100+ to spare, then you're into commercial/second hand/astro-specific cameras which may be a better bet.

 

If you're looking at cheap and cheerful, there's a ton of info from folk who collectively have tried pretty much every camera going, and for lunar and planetary imaging most will give you some degree of success. I wouldn't put too much money into it, but you can get perfectly exiting results with minimal, modest kit. You may benefit from a tracking mount as the sensors are small in most webcams and therefore you get a very narrow FOV.

 

You could try the Xbox Live Vision or the PS3 Eye, Microsoft LifeCam, Logitech, etc... I picked up a couple of PS3 Eyes in the local second hand gaming store for £1.50.

You can get M12 to 1.25" nosepiece adapters for <£10 which have a filter thread on the front for UV/IR filters, etc... these adaptors screw into the mount after unscrewing the webcam lens. Note that not all cameras use an M12 lens mount but a lot do.

The PS3 Eye was interesting to me because it claims higher frame rates than most - 60fps at 640x480 and reports of being capable of going higher (187fps at 320x240), as well as being able to do 0.1fps for 10 second exposures, so bright DSOs just within reach. Also can output raw frames rather than interpolated.

For planetary, I understand you want as high a frame rate as you can while still getting adequate exposure... the atmospheric seeing makes the planet wobble and the shorter the frame, the less of the wobble you'll see? You can then stack in Registax or similar to pick out the best frames - I think this is called "lucky imaging". So don't go for something that will only give you 15fps, for example.

 

It's not new, but it's exciting enough for me at least. Many will tell you it's not worth it, but you'll get an image that you'll be proud of, and you'll learn some of the tool chains available to process your images. You'll learn the idiosynchrasies of  your scope and mount. All of which will serve you well if and when you upgrade your camera.

 

Might be worth putting a wanted post up, as many members will have tried and retired webcams, likely sitting in a drawer.

[Corkeyno2]

I have one of those PS3 camera things. Could I use it as a webcam for astrophotography? If so, what kind of adapter would I need? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Corkey

[JimT]

I have a number of webcams modded to astro work, it has been a number of years since I used them and from what I remember they all in different ways but give good avi's working in conjunction with Ampcap and Sharpcap.  The modding is achieved by unscrewing the lens and replacing with a 1.25 barrel, on some cameras some damage has to be caused to achieve this hence buying cheap ones.  The photos below were taken with a webcam.

[Corkeyno2]

Wait... I have a PS3 eye! So would I use a 1.25" for that? Sorry if I'm a bit of a novice.

[happy-kat]

You can get webcam nose adaptors from astroboot. Yes you can use that I think there is a how to modify it post on this site.

[happy-kat]

Astroboot do webcam nose adaptors. 

[JimT]

This is a modded webcam, forget the box, it's the barrel you will be more interested in, this allows the cam to be attached to a 1.25 telescope.

[JimT]

Here one on eBay atm

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Phillips-spc900nc-880-flashed-astronomy-webcam-with-1-25-IR-filter-nosepiece-/152374186719?hash=item237a3592df:g:Eg8AAOSwjDZYZOjO

[furrysocks2]

9 minutes ago, Corkeyno2 said:

Wait... I have a PS3 eye! So would I use a 1.25" for that? Sorry if I'm a bit of a novice.

You have to mangle it a bit - the case is difficult to get apart.

 

One PS3 eye, capture by another

.

[furrysocks2]

Windows driver available here - about $3 if I remember correctly - more than I paid for the camera, anyway:

https://codelaboratories.com/downloads

That should be enough to get it running with SharpCap. I don't know if it will do low frame rates or raw frames natively with that driver, you may need the SDK (another few $s) and custom capture software. Just the driver itself should get you started, though.

 

Unless you're using Linux, in which case the gspca_ov534 kernel module should be part of all recent distributions, but won't do raw frames or long exposures unless you modify it.

[Mick J]

Interesting camera the PS3eye, has promise but I would suggest the xbox camera, just as cheap, easy mod to start with and software is free (a search in the diy threads). Nosepiece also can be found on ebay. enjoy