What's the best webcam to remove IR filter from and fit to telescope?

[moonomaly]

Lots of videos on youtube, mostly using a 35mm film tube for a housing but i can't find one that's about removing the IR filter AND attaching to a scope.

I opened up my logitech C270 webcam but the filter is part of the surface-mounted CCD chip so i'm not touching that, i need one where the filter is part of the lens assembly so that it's easily removable, or even breakable, but also one that is easy to fit to the star diagonal.

Any advice/experience/failure stories greatly received

[rickwayne]

I think very few people are still using webcams for astro, hence the lack of response. Even for autoguiding, it may not be cheaper as such to buy a dedicated astro camera but it rapidly evens out if you don't have unlimited spare time. I know that $150 can still be a lot of money; ASI120s can be had on the Cloudy Nights classifieds for $100 or less.

[johninderby]

Theres a ZWO ASI 034mc camera listed on Astrobuysell at the moment for £45.00 posted. Basic beginners camera but cheap.

Edited June 22, 2019 by johninderby

[moonomaly]

Thanks for replies, ended up getting a raspberry pi plus the IR camera. I was hoping i'd see something in the sky but i've seen nothing, i suppose the sensors are short-range, should probably read more before embarking on these projects!

What i have been wanting to do for years is skywatching with night vision, i finally bit the bullet and got one of those P8079HP NV cascade tubes, it's nearly done, will post a thread on it.

Cheers and beers

[DaveL59]

what is it you are hoping to achieve?

I can't say regarding webcam which would have a IR filter that's easy to remove, but CCTV units are often switchable IRcut. Even then it won't give night vision unless you are using an IR illuminator and that will have a range limit, say 50-70 yards or so. Probably below what a telescope can usefully focus down to unless you use a high power source. Even so you'll likely find any foreground object will be over bright and further away will be very dim. A starvis type sensor will perhaps be able to pick some detail with tweaked settings but at the expense of image noise.

For night sky the IR filter likely won't be any detriment so no real need to remove it... IR illuminators won't help at all for night sky, sensor sensitivity to be able to pick out the objects of interest will be way more important, that and ability to do long exposure to capture what is in effect a faint dispersed pattern of light across the sensor. No idea how the NV cascade tubes would do for this either but I doubt they'd give the best of images, please do let us know 🙂