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Webcam for Astrophotography


Herishi

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Guys

After reading a lot about how to flash the phillips 880 to be a 900, my main question is why not buy a SCP900NC to start with? is it a cost thing or is there something I'm not understanding?

Cheers Guys

Steve

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Steve, you're first challenge is finding an SPC900 in the first place. Philips stopped making them a number of years ago, and they are becoming more and more rare. Then the cost, being rare is far more than it was in the past.

Morgans seems to have come into a large stock of the 880, which is basically, for our purposes anyway, the same camera, and a quick firmware flash brings it to be identical, which you have to do, to be able to use the 880 with the latest windows OS's

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Has there been nothing better made in recent years, preferably in HD :)

I see the microsoft life HD webcam can be modified but it's a lot of work, I like the small amount of work required with the Phillips :-)

I'll post one if I find a good one.

Steve

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Has there been nothing better made in recent years, preferably in HD :)

I see the microsoft life HD webcam can be modified but it's a lot of work, I like the small amount of work required with the Phillips :-)

I'll post one if I find a good one.

Steve

Modding the Lifecam only takes a few minutes, TBH. Its a wee bit fiddly, but nothing too difficult.

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Modding the Lifecam only takes a few minutes, TBH. Its a wee bit fiddly, but nothing too difficult.

Thanks for the info, how does it compare to the Spc900? do you know?

Steve

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last year if you could find a philips 900 it would have cost £60 upwards without uv/ir filter, but the flashed 880 seem to be in plentyfull supply so the whole unit including filter could be purchased new for around £40 mark.

the webcams are exactly the same inside and work so well that they are almost a must for first time planetary imaging, also all the software needed is free from the net.

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Microsoft H5D-00003 Lifecam Cinema Webcam: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

I've found the Lifecam for £30 on amazon, I might get one and look at modifying one,

I am a little green about this so please excuse my ignorance, how does this all go together does it just fit with a Barlow or do you fit a EP then this, if this can only plug into the barlow, then with my 750mm 150P and a 2x barlow then the maximum magnification would end up being 1500mm, which would normally be a lot but them stars and planets are quite a long way away:D does it assemble like the pic below?

Steve

post-23617-133877524041_thumb.jpg

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Do the mod, as per Gary Honis's site (nothing more than removing the lens and the mount).

Get a Lifecam adapter from Billetparts.co.uk and bung the modfied cam into it.

Then mount the cam in place of the eyepiece. Job jobbed.

I personally don't use a barlow, as it is nigh on impossible to get the image onto the chip (planetary). It also makes focusing very difficult on Lunar work....the slightest movement on the focuser knob will throw the focus off. I am using a 'scope with a 2000mm focal length...your mileage will vary if your 'scope has a different focal length.

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I can't comment as I have never used the SPC900. The Lifecam is a bit more expensive isn't it?

These were done on a Lifecam, so it can get decent results.

Wow Truly amazing shots

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I own the SPC900NC and have done the SC1 LX modification for it.

For planetary imaging I think I would get better results from the MS Lifecam. Because it is capable of proper USB2.0 bandwidth (unlike the SPC900NC which claims to be USB2.0 but is actually USB1.1) so it will be capable of higher frame rates without having to compress the images (and lose detail).

Don't get too carried away by the CMOS inferiority argument these days. Traditionally CMOS sensors were less sensitive because of more electronics around the edge of the pixels on the surface of the sensor which reduced the surface area of each pixel, which explained why CCDs were more sensitive and less noisy. But most CMOS sensors these days use microlensing, which focus light more intensely onto the sensitive parts of each pixel and makes up for a lot of it.

My opionion is that for planetary imaging, with the MS Lifecam HD, the higher bandwidth capability through it's own USB controller far outweighs the CMOS/CCD comparison, especially these days.

I remember my Nikon D70s camera was a Sony ICX-series real CCD sensor, then they (as well as Canon) built all their later DSLRS using a CMOS sensor. And not many people complain about those.

I use my modified SPC900NC specifically with the long-exposure modification so I can take time-lapse video of my imaging sessions when outside. Like this... Astro processing of M51 and M81/82 with DeepSkyStacker PixInsight LE - ChrisLoran - blip.tv

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Ok so I got the lifecam HD built and in the billet parts enclosure, Cheers for the info,

I had a quick go last night, got Jupiter lined up and was amazed at the amount of "zoom" using the webcam, I could see jupiter and the 4 biggest moons, but the planet it's self was so bright all the detail was burnt out.

I was just using the lifecam software and fully except that I have probably done something wrong.

Has anyone found better imaging software to use?

Steve

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  • 4 months later...

Hi, I was reading this thread with some interest and was looking at following a link on how to modify the Microsoft Lifecam HD (720P) camer for astrophotography when I noticed that MS have since released a newer Full HD (1080P) webcam - MS Lifecam 1080p.

Microsoft Unveils New LifeCam With Stunning 1080p HD Sensor: Closest Thing to Being There in Person: LifeCam Studio is the perfect HD video calling companion for Windows Live Messenger 2011.

Does anyone have any experience of using this camera for astrophotgraphy and whether there is any real improvement in image quality over that provided by the older 720P model?

Thanks,

Gary

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  • 1 year later...

How would this webcam rate...

http://www.creative....tID=1&pid=20165

Sensor: Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) image sensor

It's often the case that higher resolution sensors make imaging harder. If you can find some information about the sensitivity of the camera sensor itself you might have a better idea of how well it could perform.

James

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It's often the case that higher resolution sensors make imaging harder. If you can find some information about the sensitivity of the camera sensor itself you might have a better idea of how well it could perform.

James

Agreed. More pixels is not always the way to go. All those pixels need a big scope to fill them with sufficient photons. My ASI130MM is 1280x1024, but it allows selection of a region of interest (which I tend to set to 640x480 on planets). Only on the moon and sun do I use the full resolution.

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  • 2 years later...
I've got hold of a MICROSOFT 1393 LIFECAM CINEMA 720P, it's so good as a webcam, I'm reluctant to dismember it! I see that sharpcap allows manual use of the focus so I may have a go using it through the eyepiece just to see what ahppens befor I start surgery. That said I've got the tube from a naff Barlow to put it in so...

In the meantime I've got also an ordinary webcam adaptor with an IR filter in it. I  get the impression I'd be better off removing this?

Thanks

Stub

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You will want an IR filter.  I imagine there's probably one built into the lens of the Lifecam, but I'm afraid I can't recall.

I have the same camera and removed it from the housing and unsoldered the zoom lens.  Getting in was a little tricky.  Removing the lens was fairly easy.  To re-house it I took an old 25mm Skywatcher kit lens apart and used the body.  The round back of the original camera housing sits nicely where the eyepiece lens used to go and the cable feeds out through the hole at that end and the sensor end of the camera is held in place with an O-ring.  Being an eyepiece barrel it is threaded to take an IR filter, so that just screwed in at the end.

The biggest problem of reassembly was blanking out the bright LED below the sensor.  That took several applications of Hammerite Smooth paint.  I didn't want to just crush the LED as I did with the ones on my Xbox camera because I didn't know if it was important.

I must have some photos somewhere.  I'll have a dig around for them.

James

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