HD Webcam Modification

[Kerrp30]

I would like to attach this modified webcam to a Baader Zoom EP,

What is my best thing to fit it into? I am new to AP and Astronomy so do not know very much in the way of adaptors etc.

Paul

[Tim]

So the webcam has no gain control, does it have an exposure control?

My lifecam doesnt (nx6000), it relies on auto exposure so that and the gain sliders are greyed out. If anybody knows or has heard of a way to enable these or do a firmware mod etc i'd be very keen to hear about it

[rwg]

Another modification complete

I can agree that step #7 is pretty much impossible to carry out - I think that I got the screwdriver to the right point once or twice, but you could feel it touching the chips on the PCB - I didn't dare try to remove the screw that way. Instead once I had one side of the mount loose, I pulled down the loose side of the mount just enough to undo a small bolt that provided the up/down motion for the mount. Lever this bolt out of its housing with a flat head driver and you can remove the lower half of the mount, then snap out the bit with the awkward screw.

I varied the rebuild steps - instead of using an eypiece body (none spare to hand) I used a 35mm film canister. This meant not re-installing the microphone, but re-using the metal outer shield of the camera. I held the inner housing in place in the outer shield with a dab of hot-glue in the microphone button hole.

The metal housing is still a bit smaller than the inside of a film canister, but wrapping a number of layers of insulation tape around the metal body soon fixed that. Seal up the back end of the film canister around the cable as you see fit and you're away.

Now, if only it wasn't raining...

Robin

[samtheeagle]

TJ, yes the camera DOES have an exposure control, but does NOT have a gain control. As I said in an earlier post, I found that balancing the exposure and brigthness sliders allowed me to get the colour and detail (ish) in my Mars picture.

Well done btw Robin Hope you get some clear skies soon to try it out!

[samtheeagle]

Ok, so despite being driven half insane by the clouds (set up and it's perfectly clear, start to image == loads of clouds, give up and it suddenly becomes clear again :S) I've got what I feel is a much better image of Mars

Same set up as before 150mm f8 newt, with the IR and ND filters, and a 2X barlow. So with the very small gaps I got between the rolling clouds I found the seeing to be vastly improved over the first attempt with this camera I hope the picture speaks for itself.

IMHO this is a good planetary cam

[rwg]

Nice picture there!

I finally got a chance to test out my mine last night during a clearing in the clouds at about 10pm. Unfortunately I was in a hurry, so I used my Nexstar 102 SLT refractor rather than take the time to use the Mak, also I intended to use a 640x360 capture area and zoom, but forgot to zoom. In spite of all this I collected one AVI sequence and could see Syrtis Major on the processed final image.

The forecast for tonight is good, so hopefully I'll get a chance to do it again properly. It was certainly encouraging that I was getting a decent image with a very low exposure value (even with a barlow in, so working at ~F/13). With the fusion, I was always working with the exposure cranked up very high to get any sort of decent image.

I had no problem adjusting the exposure value to give a reasonable level of intensity in the image, in spite of the lack of a gain control.

Robin

[neil phillips]

Gary honis says if the lossles codec HUFFYUV is downloaded, then uncompressed 30fps at 1280x720 is possible however after downloading this codec, its not showing on either virtual dub or k3 ccd tools, anyone have any idea why this is not working.

So for now is it best to just shoot at 30 fps at 640 x 480 on yuy2 uncompressed, as that certainly seems better than 1280 on the lossy. mjpg on the other hand one could shoot at 20 fps on 800 x 448. or even 15 fps at 960 x 544. other than imaging area what other advantages could outweigh frame rate, are we talking finer pixels really showing better image quality here over frame increase. Whats others veiws on this ? Not sure why i cant get HUFFYUV to work, Gary has it all it seems. The brightness control seems odd it doesnt want to listen after setting it, as soon as exposure is touched ( or a capture started it resets to minimum again, Very odd.

[rwg]

Finally got a decent image of mars this evening (dodging the cloud and the snow showers). Processing on this was very rough and ready in registax - will return to it later, but it's the best mars image I've ever managed so far

Not sure about the codecs issue - where did you download the HUFFYUV codec from?

Robin

[neil phillips]

I just did a google and took a pic, though think its the same site Gary Honis has on hes codec link on hes sight

[darkly]

This thread is great!

It's persuaded me to flash some cash, hopefully cam will be at home next day or so, hopefully I'll be home next day or so ! It's been six weeks since I had any reall time tio myself so can't wait.

Thanks for the inspiration.

[darkly]

Quick question.

As I know the 'squre root of nothing' about photgraphy I hope you don't mind a quick question (my ignorance shines through ).

From what I've read, the cam will require IR filtering, will the Baader UV/IR cut filter do the trick and will it fit (I assume it will but would rather be sure. UV & IR FIlters - Baader UV/IR Cut Filter

I assume from reading the thread that all magnifying from this set up is accomplished using Barlows is this the case?

If so, I have a 2x Barlow but someone mentions that higher mags would be better for mars (and maybe other planets), 'to fill the frame'?

What size Barlows could / should sensibly be used?

I have had imaging as a bit of a longer term ambition but, I see this mod as a rather cost effective way of at least getting a system together to play with and learn with, so, any advice would be really appreciated - my thanks in advance.

[samtheeagle]

The brightness control seems odd it doesnt want to listen after setting it, as soon as exposure is touched ( or a capture started it resets to minimum again, Very odd.

Yeah I had this problem too last night, using amcap. I don't know whether it's an issue with the capture software or the driver? It was driving my nuts! I'd get all the controls tweaked so the image looked good on screen, and then as soon as the capture started it seemed to throw away all the settings so Mars became a super bright fuzzy patch

Any other users of this cam had this issue too?

[samtheeagle]

From what I've read, the cam will require IR filtering

It's not an absolute requirement, but the filter will remove unwanted noise from those parts of the spectrum reaching the sensor. So it will help you get a clearer image, but the camera will still work just fine without it It's a refinement kind of a thing, as far as I know anyway!

[rwg]

Yeah I had this problem too last night, using amcap. I don't know whether it's an issue with the capture software or the driver? It was driving my nuts! I'd get all the controls tweaked so the image looked good on screen, and then as soon as the capture started it seemed to throw away all the settings so Mars became a super bright fuzzy patch

Any other users of this cam had this issue too?

I was using OpenVideoCapture last night rather than Amcap and definitely didn't have this issue. I also just tried a quick capture using Amcap and didn't see any change in the brightness as the capture started.

As to the IR filter - I haven't been using one so far (or in fact any filters) and have got reasonable images out of the camera. There is an infrared filter built into the lens assembly - it might just be possible to remove the lens and leave the filter in place, then reposition the assembly over the sensor to take advantage of that. I guess the worst that could happen would be to bust the lens assembly beyond repair

Robin

[samtheeagle]

where did you download the HUFFYUV codec from?

I found this one: Huffyuv

I'll try it out tonight to see if I can get it to work. I'm going to give VirtualDub a go for capturing too, see if I still get the same exposure / brightness resetting issues.

[neil phillips]

Gary Honis also reported this brightness issue, so thats odd its happened 3 different users and 1 not. Im sure gary tried the open video capture if i remember, very odd this camera.

I tried that HUFFYUV page, got it on programes, on control panel, couldnt see it on k3 virtual dub or amcap. if anyone manages to get 1280x720 res going without the lossy mjpg codec, i would love to know what you did.

Its a shame so far because this codec problem is a very important issue with this camera to be able to shoot at 1280 x720 30 fps UNCOMPRESSED seems a big issue to me,

one could compromise and shoot at 15 fps at 960 resolution yuy2 codec, but its a big compromise. Ok this mjpg codec is lossy, but how lossy is lossy. how bad is this problem.

clearly a codec that will enable full resolution at 30 fps is badly needed by all those who own this camera, if quality is your ultimate goal, thats not to say it isnt promising anyway, because it can still shoot at 30 fps at 640 resolution uncompressed. the spc i found got block noise anything after 10 fps, i can see this on blowing up the images, i suspect mjpg will be similar. not good guys

[rwg]

Ok, I have the huffyuv codec instaled now, thanks for the link. I can make a recording using this codec that plays in windows media player and virtualdub, but if I try to open it in registax I get a 'File not found' error . So far I can't work out what it is looking for that it can't find, but I'll have a bit more of a dig later.

I've also been looking into the colourspace/compression issues - As far as I can see the only things that appear in the 'Video PIN' window are either 'RGB24' and 'I420' when you have the MS lifecam software installed or 'YUY2' and 'MJPG' when you don't. Has anyone else seen anything else in this list? If they have, it would blow my logic below somewhat out of the water...

I am guessing that the selections in the Video PIN window are the format in which the data is sent from the camera to the computer along the USB link - the highest quality is RGB24, giving the lowest frame rates, going down through YUY2, I420 then MJPG giving the highest framerate. I found an interesting article explaing the differences between colour spaces here : Colorspace

So my take at the moment is that things like huffyuv don't get involved at this side of things (data from camera->computer). They get used to process the data being sent to file (using Options->Set Compressor in OpenVideoCapture; not sure if there is the equivalent in Amcap). If this is correct then you want to choose a compression codec that matches your choice in the video PIN window, otherwise you may be converting from one lossy format (MJPG say) to another (say YUY based) and therefore losing information twice.

Based on all this, I'd suggest that the best option is going to be picking YUY2 in the video PIN, an appropriate codec and then reducing the resolution to get the framerate you want. Note that if you reduce the resolution, you can still use the 'Zoom' and 'Pan/Tilt' controls to see the full sensor resolution for a selected area - this is probably going to be fine for planetary imaging where the planet will easily fit into 640x360, maybe use a different approach for lunar imaging.

Anyway, I'm going to try the YUY2 the next time I get a chance - I used MJPG for last nights imaging. Will see if there is any appreciable difference.

cheers,

Robin

[rwg]

Gary Honis also reported this brightness issue, so thats odd its happened 3 different users and 1 not. Im sure gary tried the open video capture if i remember, very odd this camera.

ps. I am running Windows 7 on the laptop I am using for capture and haven't had any problems with the brightness. Not sure if OS version is a factor, but if we collect enough data we might spot a pattern.

Robin

[samtheeagle]

Hmmmm, the settings issue is strange. I have had very mixed results on that front. It has at times worked fine, and others it has been completely loopy. Sometimes it looks great on screen and then when I try to capture it suddenly becomes horribly over exposed, other times is decides to under expose... I've yet to find a pattern in my 3 nights of using it

I've never installed any software for it, I just plugged it in to my XP netbook and it detected it all fine and dandy. So I don't have any of the other software that comes with the camera, but Gary Honis suggested you should uninstall that anyway. Maybe if I install that I'll get a more up to date driver? And then remove the software again??? Needs some experimenting I think.

But when it does behave itself it gives me great results! You've got to take the rough with the smooth I suppose.

[neil phillips]

Hi all i just figured the brightness problem here stops doing it if exposure is set to auto, not that i particulaly like that idea but it helps in situations where we cant get a good signal if all else is failing stick it on auto adjust your brightness so your level meter reads 160 ( if your using k3 to capture which i will ) and the signal should be optimum or close to it. still experimenting here.

[George]

Ok a few dimensions of the eyepiece you will need to butcher to fit the webcam into.

Its 65mm inc the silver bit or 2.5 inches in old money.

[neil phillips]

A lifecam shot details on planetary images

[Merlin66]

Kerrp30,

For planetary imaging most guys use barlows to increase the effective focal length.

As there are no lenses in the modified webcam you can't just hold it against an eyepiece and image easily. If you can find an eyepiece projection adaptor which will fit your eyepiece ( you need to check; some of the modern eyepieces are too chunky to fit into the unit) you also need a T thread to 1.25" adaptor to hold the webcam.

An assembly like this can give good results but IMHO a good Barlow ( or Powermate) is 300% better.

Ken

[NickH]

Powermate 2.5X to 5X for sure, and adjusting the brightness control is bad bad bad...

[neil phillips]

This is true Nick but the lifecam makes it hard not too, This camera has turned out to be a very mixed bag for me, it doesnt function correctly, has odd colour, yet if it just only would shoot at 30 fps for me, and perhaps be controlled on something like astro snap where you have 3 seperate colour channels to control, it could be a very interesting webcam.

ultimately on my system, so far its certainly flawed. But maybe not flawed for everyone, who doesnt encounter the problems im getting. Especially as i say if something like astro snap was controlling the colour, for 40£ its certainly worth experimenting with one.

But i prefer this personally

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4071/4359129093_8eaa4d3c62_o.png