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Got to get me a Toucam

Kaptain Klevtsov

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Kaptain Klevtsov

Kaptain Klevtsov

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Seeing all the fabulous images posted of Saturn and his mates makes me NEED a Toucam I think. I can get amazing results from the piece of junk that me and the lad made in the shed. It never gave any good pictures in the state it was when I bought it so I'm amazed that it can do this.

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My DSLR seems to not want to get the number of frames necessary to feed into Registax to do the same, so I wondered "is it time to Toucam"?

Bern's website has the colour kit and the mono chipped version so I need advice to not buy the one that's less than I'll need. Having been in a position where I wished I'd spent a few quid more in the first place I have made a concious decision to buy the better kit first. That way I don't get stuck with stuff that I've grown out of as much. So the big question is this:- Do I get the colour Toucam to start me off, then flog the house and buy the ATIK, buy the mono Toucam and stick with it, or learn how to do the pics with the DSLR?

Answers on a postcard to....

Captain Chaos

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MartinB

MartinB

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Here is a link I found interesting. Part of a great web site http://astrosurf.com/legault/ The article on collimation is also well worth reading.

The basic Toucam is a cracking piece of kit. The alternatives cost a lot more and I'm still to be convinced they are worth it on images like Saturn. You have seen Nick Smith's Atik pics with an Atik but then he has an orion SPX. There are plenty of great images of Saturn on the site produced with the humble Toucam. the main problem with the basic Toucam is that it isn't cooled and can't be used for longer exposures than 1/25 second. This means you are limited to bright solar system stuff. If you are thinking of using something for deep sky then a modded web cam is the way to go for a cheap into - well that's what I'm doing anyway :laugh:

Martin

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CELESCOPE

CELESCOPE

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Hi CC,

Well its a difficult one , as you said there are many ways to go here , in one way the wide field is lovely , a different outlook as to what the norm is , BUT have to speak how i feel , everyone wants the planet they take to be self satisfying , and we are seldom happy , this is because its becoming a huge challenge to produce a real cracker of an image , we have all seen these super images especially of Saturn and Jupiter, and they are great , i have been trying for years to get a nice close in image of the planets using the Toucam , so far i,m not happy , this is because i dont give enough time to it , it takes a lot of dedication and patience just sitting there waiting for those special nights , since i have been imaging thats around 7 years now , i have only seen say maybe a handful of images i call good , so do u want to go for that , or satisfy yourself with wide field images , the choice has to be yours , if you do go the close in planet route , then take the Toucam pro 2 , this will give you a darn good image like you see here on this forum , some of the guys here have only been imaging for a short while and have produced some lovely images of the planets , if you go for the b/w chipped one , then u will need more work in LRGB to colour it , whatever you do , good luck , plenty of help here , but meanwhile , you images are just fine , keep at it .

Rog

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Kaptain Klevtsov

Kaptain Klevtsov

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Rog, you have got me confused wit your mention of "widefield". Is that with the Toucam, the ATIK, the DSLR or what? I am not familiar (yet) with the FOV of the various systems. I also thought that I could use a Barlow or focal reducer to "get where I want to be" whatever system I use. Is this way off?

Obviously things are going to be simpler/easier in "native" mode i.e. no additional gizmos but, as yet, I don't know what to expect.

Having seen loads of images here, they all look spectacular to me, be they M31 in all it's width, or diddy little planets in colour. Isn't there a compromise ANYWHERE? :laugh:

TIA

Captain Chaos

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CELESCOPE

CELESCOPE

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SorrY for the confusion CC, OK the wide field is what you are doing at the moment with the DSLR, the Toucam pro 2 is for planetary and lunar , this gives the tighter FOV ,so that that sorted , the Atik you hear mentioned depending on which one , the atik 1hs is mainly used once again for planetary , the Atik 2hs , which i used for most of my images , is a bigger chip and is used for mainly DSOs because of its sensitivity, what you have at the moment with the DSLR is used a lot now for DSOs as well , for really long exposures , but the tracking and guiding have to be very good for this , so you have the equipment to get some good images there , just need the practise is all , but going back to the Toucam , for larger views of planetary imaging , i think this is what you would want , hope that explains it a bit better

Rog

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Kaptain Klevtsov

Kaptain Klevtsov

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OK, so I get the bigger chip size with the ATIK 2HR, which gives me more coverage than the Toucam. Got that in my head OK. But it costs just a little more - no biggie, at least it's not the 16HR yet!

Now I need to ponder what it is that I want to point at. The current problem is that I want to point at whatever I can image, so if I got a Toucam i would image planets and the moon, and if i got the ATIK it would be the horsey etc.

I suspect that the horsey is within the grasp of the DSLR, if only I can get the filter sorted out to get rid of the street lighting.

The two ways of doing this currently under evaluation (inside, out of the rain currently) are try the LPR filter I have with the barlow that I have on the Frac. that I have. That way I think I can get it to focus, as fracs. have more focus travel. I can then get a snap and see if I like it and go from there.

Thanks all

Captain Chaos

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CELESCOPE

CELESCOPE

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yes you can get ole horsey with the DSLR, i have seen ppl get it , not that great i must admit , but it depends on the set up ppl have ,

its the ole chestnut again the longer the exposure the better the image , ATIK 2HS you can stack loads of images , in a fast time with software packages , not in colour i know , also summer months do present a few probs with the DSLR pixels etc , whereas the atik is air cooled so it helps alittle , there are so many factors when you get into DSO imaging , i dont want to put anyone of , but just be prepared to put the hand in the pocket , why!! because you will always want to better what you do , DSR is far the cheaper way , as long as you can get a good set up going , James and Russ , and Ant turn out some excellent results , and they could help you more than me with that .

Rog

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Nick Smith

Nick Smith

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Hi CC

If you want to get into high-res planetary imaging then I would recommend the colour Toucam. You can't beat it for the cash. The main reason why I have got an Atik 1-HS is because I wanted to be able to dabble in long exposure stuff when the moon and planets are badly placed. Also if you get a B&W chipped cam, then you will have to get the LRGB filters to do colour (at least another £100).

The basic Toucam is a cracking piece of kit. The alternatives cost a lot more and I'm still to be convinced they are worth it on images like Saturn. You have seen Nick Smith's Atik pics with an Atik but then he has an orion SPX. There are plenty of great images of Saturn on the site produced with the humble Toucam.

Very true Martin. On most nights there is not much if anything between the Toucam and Atik. I have attached a comparison of a Toucam image of Saturn taken last weekend with an Atik image taken the weekend before. These were taken in the same sort of 7/10 seeing conditions. These are the sort of "average" good conditions that you get about one night in every three and you can see the images are fairly similar in quality. However in the really good seeing that you get a few times a year (if you're lucky!), I'm sure that the Atik would outperform the Toucam.

If you want to get into deep sky stuff then you need to listen to Rog. He has got more out of the Atik-2HS then any man (or woman) on the planet.

Regards

Nick

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Nick Smith

Nick Smith

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Right - you all know that the Atik *is* a Toucam, yes? (not the 16 and 16HR of course, just the little ones)

Arthur

True Arthur.

But mono-chipped with native Raw mode and about three times the sensitivity.

There seems a lot less noise in the Atik AVIs than Toucam in my experience.

Regards

Nick

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Ambermile

Ambermile

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Right - you all know that the Atik *is* a Toucam, yes? (not the 16 and 16HR of course, just the little ones)

Arthur

True Arthur.

But mono-chipped with native Raw mode and about three times the sensitivity.

There seems a lot less noise in the Atik AVIs than Toucam in my experience.

Regards

Nick

Yup - but at a price? RAW is free :laugh: There are cheaper options to the bw - you get a better amp-off too. I suspect the noise is temperature-related as the Atiks are aircooled.

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Rob

Rob

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My only 2p to be thrown in here is:-

I've just bought myself a Quickcam 3000 from ebay for £18!!. This will be just as good as a ToUcam on Planets (unmodded), and for £18 you can't go wrong. I've bought an adapter from a guy over in the states who makes them using a CNC machine. They also provide a thread to screw on filters. £12 del (yes £12)

If you want cheap... this is the route.

Regards

Rob

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Kaptain Klevtsov

Kaptain Klevtsov

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Cool! So when does Saturn dissappear for several years? Thats the day before I get to grips with this new toy, right?

Got the 5" Frac. set up in the daughters bedroom tonight so that I might glimpse Jupiter on the way to the bathroom. I'll need another beer now though to guarantee that I won't miss it.

More toys, YAY!

Captain Chaos

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MartinB

MartinB

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Download the free version of K3ccdtools for capture CC. Way better than the phillips VRlounge software which gave me no end of trouble. K3tools allows neat things like incremental naming of files and more flexible frame rates and can also be used for long exposure DSO stuff.

Martin

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