Webcam help

[Arushin]

Hello all,

well...the moment finally arrived after what seems like two months of constant cloud. I woke up at 3am to visit the 'little room' and noticed a clear sky and Jupiter perfectly placed above the garden. After much mumbling and moaning my other half reminded me that it was a bank holiday and eventually kicked me out of bed and persuaded me to go and test the Mak 127 on a planet. (primary reason for buying it).

Neither the scope or Jupiter disappointed me! I thought that seeing as I was going to be up for an hour or two I would brake out the webcam and see if I could get some basic first shots. Got everything up and running and found the moon...great, turned to Jupiter...nothing? Turned the scope back to the moon and a superb image of the moon back on the laptop screen, turned back to Jupiter...still nothing.

Am I missing something here? It seems that the webcam can't pick up anything but the bright moon. I tried with/without barlow and with/without filter. The Phillips SPC900NC is supposed to be one of the best for basic imaging, but I don't seem to able to capture anything but the bright moon. Not the end of the world because viewing is my 'thang' but it would have been nice to get some shots of Jupiter and Saturn when she comes around again. Any ideas would be welcome and a big thanks you to everyone who has helped me out with my previous problems.

[riklaunim]

Jupiter needs to be really in the center of the field of view with your eyepiece, and the cameras must be in focus to "see" Jupiter without problems. On bigger defocus the planet light will be scatered and invisible even when the planet will be in the camera sight - so focus on the moon with the webcam and then go to Jupiter, center it with eyepiece without refocusing, and put the webcam back.

[Arushin]

Thanks for the quick reply,

I will certainly spend a lot more time trying to get this right next time. I just hope that it won't be at 3am again in another 2 months.

Regards Tony

[beamish]

You'll be surprised how easy it is to miss your objective with such a small chip. When looking for your target , first try and ensure that the target is as centred as you can possibly get it, a X'd hair ep helps, then raise the gain and slow the exp so more chance of getting a response from the chip and then be careful with focusing, often the target may be in the centre of the chip but you'll not see anything due the focus being off. If you use a short fl EP first around 6mm, then when the cam goes in there's a good chance that it'll be close to focus and you ought to notice the rings, focus slowly and kerpow! up it'll pop !