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DIY CCD Camera

decoyp

By decoyp
in DIY Astronomer

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decoyp

decoyp

Posted
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Has anyone ever tried to build a DIY CCD camera for astrophotography ?

I've seen a few articles about modified webcams and CCTV cameras but none for long exposure cameras.

Is this possible or economically viable ??

Anyone with any pointers or experience on the subject??

Cheers

Richard

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decoyp

decoyp

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I've been wanting to have a go at CCD imaging but can't afford a decent CCD camera. I was hoping the DIY route would be viable as I'm OK with a soldering iron and am comfortable taking stuff to pieces and modding it etc.

My interest is partly for the hell of it but mostly for financial reasons so perhaps I'll take your advice and give this one a miss. I've seen the cookbook website and it's all discontinued bits so it's probably not worth the effort.

Pity though.

Cheers anyway

Richard.

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ixalon

ixalon

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I wouldn't know where to start building one from scratch. My attempt (http://stargazerslounge.com/diy-astronomer/103414-modding-olympus-e-500-a.html) involved completely gutting an old DSLR with a sensor which is known to work well for astrophotography. There were points where I wished I had more flexibility though, e.g. there's still a lot of circuitry in there that's really not needed when all you're after is raw data from the CCD.

Money wasn't really my objective, more the challenge and fun :-) However, there's probably about £200 worth of bits in there (the camera was £90 on eBay), whereas commercial cameras using the same sensor are £1500+. Mine still has a long long way to go to perform as well as them though!

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decoyp

decoyp

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Iaxalon,

Interesting stuff. Has the £200 gone on new packaging, adapters etc or have you put some more electronics in there? I'm thinking of cooling in particular ??

Do you get decent results when compared to just using a DSLR ?

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ixalon

ixalon

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Most of the components are to build the 7.5V voltage regulator (so the 7.5V camera can be powered by the same 12V supply for the peltier and fan), and to provide nice plug-in connections for all the various switches, etc.

The shopping list included:

  • Olympus E-500 (body only) - £89
  • Olympus USB cable (they use a bespoke plug) - £4
  • Maplin MB6 Plastic Box - £9
  • Chassis mounted USB socket - £4.29
  • Chassis mounted 2.1mm socket - £1.20
  • 0.1mm pitch PCB PINs - £1
  • 0.1mm pitch terminal housing - £10
  • Chassis mounted switches - £11
  • Stripboard - £5
  • LM317T voltage regulator - £1
  • Heatsink for LM317T - £2.50
  • 1500ohm resistor - £0.40
  • 1Kohm mini - potentiometer - £2
  • Fan & Heatsink - £12
  • Peltier (40mm 12V 57W) - £5
  • Thermal paste - £10
  • Copper plate (250x125x3mm) - £13
  • Misc wires - £2
  • Misc M3 nuts, bolts and washers - £1
  • Self-indicating silica gel beads - £3
  • Canon EF mount - Salvaged from an old extension tube - Free
  • Polystyrene insulation - Free (recycled packaging)

As for comparing it to a DSLR - stay tuned. I finished building it yesterday and typically there's now blanket cloud cover :-) There's a huge difference in noise between cooled and uncooled though, so I have high hopes.

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  • 9 months later...
ixalon

ixalon

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I pretty much abandoned the project due to the noise (even when cooled). The sensor may be the same as used in astro CCDs, but the Olympus circuitry is very noisy and suffers from really bad amp glow (over about 1/4 of the frame).

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fwm891

fwm891

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You can pick-up Canon 20D's unmodified dirt cheap now and if you go the Gary Honis website he goes through all the steps to modify the camera. To save odsh don't replace the IR filter to give you a full spectrum camera...

Gary's sit also give info on other later Canon cameras which are also way down in price...

There are other sites about where they show the camera basically stripped from its body with peltier cooler and other mods - no longer looking like a DSLR

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Ericgraham

Ericgraham

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There is one home brew CCD camera project called Pyxix. See The Pyxis Camera Project

It uses professional grade Kodak CCD chips to produce a high end astro camera for a bit less than similar commercial cameras. Not an easy project.

Taking the lens out of a webcam is much easier, and many people have used this for lunar and planetary imaging.

Just for fun I bought a $20 five megapixel CMOS chip. It is still sitting on my workbench, but I hope to make a camera by driving it with an Arduino. In the unlikely event of success, I will have made something equivalent to a webcam for about the same price! That's not counting the hundreds of hours of work it will likely take. You have to be crazy to try this, but no more so than going out in a cold dark night to peer at dim fuzzies in the sky.

Eric

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  • 1 month later...
P.Johnston

P.Johnston

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Taking the lens out of a webcam is much easier, and many people have used this for lunar and planetary imaging.

Just for fun I bought a $20 five megapixel CMOS chip. It is still sitting on my workbench, but I hope to make a camera by driving it with an Arduino. In the unlikely event of success, I will have made something equivalent to a webcam for about the same price! That's not counting the hundreds of hours of work it will likely take. You have to be crazy to try this, but no more so than going out in a cold dark night to peer at dim fuzzies in the sky.

Eric

I am trying to do the same thing! I have a Logitech C910 with a 5MP CMOS chip. We are looking at the same problem from different perspectives. Is it easier to build it up or build it down? I believe I will have to remove my quality Carl Zeiss optics to use the webcam effectively with my telescope.

Exciting projects!

-Paul

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Ericgraham

Ericgraham

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A good resource for modding webcams is QCUIAG on yahoo groups. One drawback with color webcams and imagers is that they use a Bayer filter so each pixel has a red, green or blue filter over it, so the pixel count isn't a good measure of the information that you are capturing. That's why I chose a monochrome imaging chip- which by the way is still laying on the workbench. So many projects, so little time.

Eric

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P.Johnston

P.Johnston

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Confirmed.

Two Logitech techs told me they use a different CMOS sensor in the HD C910. One tech told me the resolution is about 8MP without software interpolation--10MP with interpolation.

A second tech "ran upstairs" and found out that the native resolution of the CMOS sensor is 5MP without software interpolation.

The second tech's confirms what I've read on Logitech's website.

http://logitech-en-amr.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/17516/session/L3RpbWUvMTMyNjMxNDcxNC9zaWQvTEF6VFJVTms%3D

That URL shows native resolution to be 5MP--it should be an excellent webcam for the purpose!

I'm now satisfied that the sensor in the C910 is something more than an average 2MP sensor. Now to figure out how to get it mounted to my telescope! :icon_scratch:

-Paul

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  • 1 year later...
cassiewoofer

cassiewoofer

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Has anyone ever tried to build a DIY CCD camera for astrophotography ?

I've seen a few articles about modified webcams and CCTV cameras but none for long exposure cameras.

Is this possible or economically viable ??

Anyone with any pointers or experience on the subject??

Cheers

Richard

Hi Richard, I'm thinking along the same lines as you in this old post..... did you get anywhere... or just end up spending money?

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