ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY WITH THE WEBCAMS Last updated: 22 March 2004

This page documents Quickcam (and similar video/web cameras) comments, tips, and photos. Also, see the Quickcam references on the Astrophotography - Basics page. Search the site for other items about webcams. Contributions welcome.

Subject: The Best ETX WEBCAM invention this year!!!
Date: 3/22/04, 07:09
From: geheniau@xs4all.nl
Amazing!

astrosurf.com/astrobond/ebrawf.htm
of astrosurf.com/astrobond/ebrawe.htm (english version)

Be sure to use the latest macro
http://www.astrosurf.com/astrobond/BERaw.zip number 3:

3) 'Set OPTIMIZED COLOR (NON RAW) Mode AND Special Factory Settings'
C'est la nouvelle macro NON RAW pour capteurs COULEUR mais avec le
benefice des modifs RAW (moins de bruit, moins d'artefacts et plus de
peche dans le sombre :o)))

Ce mode ne necessite PAS DE DECODAGE, on travaille exactement comme
avant au niveau des acquisitions et du traitement, la seule difference
avec le vrai RAW Couleur se situant au niveau de la resolution qui n'est
pas ameliorée dans ce cas... alors qu'en theorie, on peut gagner un peu
en resolution en mode RAW Couleur :o)


Good Luck

Job Geheniau
The Netherlands

About the modification I just send you. There is a new macro for it so
that you can use it without the raw frames with your color webcam.
Problem is that you can only download the new macro on the FRENCH site
under:

http://astrosurf.com/astrobond/ebrawf.htm

Dernieres Nouvelles du RAW... !!!

(i.e. new update for raw), download the macro and choose number 3
3) 'Set OPTIMIZED COLOR (NON RAW) Mode AND Special Factory Settings'

Job Geheniau
The Netherlands

Subject: M42 photo
Date: 3/20/04, 12:36
From: Franck Bouquerel Wanadoo (Franck.Bouquerel@Wanadoo.fr)
Please find here for your website my first photo done with my ToUcam
modified "SC".

It's the central zone of M42

Done by Franck Bouquerel & Florence Clément
Location : Côme Lake, Italia
ETX125 with focal reduced 0.5
14 x 3s
acquisition with AstroSnap
pregistration with Registax

Franck,

Subject: photos of Saturn and Jupiter
Date: 3/17/04, 13:31
From: val-dick (val-dick@wizard.net)
Using the information in the great article on Registax in the April S&T, I
finally have some photos of Jupiter and Saturn that I'm willing to send.
Dick Kafka (Silver Spring, MD);

MEADE ETX-125EC UHTC with 2x Barlow Lens and PHILIPS ToUcam PRO, camera in
eyepiece holder; all captured with AVIedit, processed with Registax2D, ver
2.1.  North up, as shown in latest Sky and Telescope (this is Y Flip from
camera and Registax). 90% image qualityColor processing, wavelet filtering,
5% brightness reduction of blue and green for image of Jupiter.

Saturn:  2/17/2004, 0057 UT (7:57 PM EST, 3/16); 5 fps, 1/25,(186 of 600
frames)




Jupiter:  3-14-2004 0137UT (9:37 PM EST, 3/13); 10 fps, 1/33 (344 out of
1199 frames); manually guided the image on the screen to stay away from bad
spots on camera  Autostar set to lowest slew rate;
The shadow is of Ganymede.

Subject: Planet Photos
Date: 3/14/04, 11:11
From: Chuck Falcone (cmfalcone@san.rr.com)
Last night after several months I finally got a chance to look at the
night sky.  I decided to take a picture of Venus since it was in a good
position to try.  I heard it helps to use a lunar filter to cut down on
the glare so I did.  After taking the Venus picture I proceeded to take
a picture of Jupiter.  I was unaware that Ganymede and Io were
transiting the planet.  I forgot to take the lunar filter off when I
took the Jupiter photo.  No enhancements were made to either photo
except Registax.  The equipment used... ETX125EC and a Quickcam Pro
4000.  Venus was taken at 5 frames per second for 1 minute, and Jupiter
was 5 frames per second for 2 minutes.  I'm not quite sure if the small
dot in the middle of the upper cloud belt just left of the shadow is IO.
 If you have an opinion on this please let me know.
 
Many Thanks!
 
 
Chuck Falcone
Lat 32° 46.8 Long 117° 4.2
cmfalcone@san.rr.com

Mike here: That sure looks like a moon shadow.

Subject: Wireless Video Cams
Date: 3/9/04, 11:18
From: yagis (yagis@piggysurf.com)
Are there any of you using spy cams via TV-Card to create AVI files.

You can average 80ft distance remotely from comfort of home.

The reason is that if you use such a system you can attach the camera to
the eyepiece and recieve the images inside your shack while the scope
remains outside tracking with autostar. This will do away with the need
for USB relay`s which will cost about $140 for 80ft.

Dont know if these 1.2Ghz devices are legal. I remember a case of a guy
here in Limerick (15mls Shannon Airport) who got a visit from the
heavies. It seems he was interfering with the local Airport Radar
station. This case was taken to court.
 
Anyway..Any info greatly accepted.
 
Billy.
Rep.Ireland.

Subject: Saturn image taken with a ETX-70
Date: 2/25/04, 10:28
From: Cairnsie13@aol.com
Here is my second ever image of Saturn. It was taken using a Phillips
Toucam 2 attached to a ETX-70 at prime focus with a 3x barlow. A 20
second AVI was recorded and then was processed using Registax. The
picture was recorded on the 25th of february from Sunderland England.
Thanks for providing such a great site. Chris Cairns

Subject: Etx125 images of Eskimo Nebular
Date: 2/24/04, 13:33
From: Jan (damhof@home.nl)
This is my latest:  NGC2392 "Eskimo Nebula"

ETX125 ToUcam with 0.6 + 0.3 ext focal reducer.
41 out of 345 20sec images.
Some curve, selective blur and color correction in photoshop.

Hope you can place it on you deepsky gallery

Jan
the Netherlands
members.home.nl/damhof/astro/

Subject: Saturn Pics
Date: 2/24/04, 05:51
From: DAVID_MANN@SIMONSGROUP.COM
Here's the pics of Saturn I took last night from Lincoln UK.  By the
time I had got around to taking them the sky had misted over a little. 
There are 2 Pics details as follows

Satwebcam.jpg
Telescope        ETX-105EC Alt/Az easy aligned
Logitech Quickcam Pro4000 Webcam with Lense removed at Prime Focus.
77 frames out of 254 stacked using Registax, Unsharp mask in Photoshop.

Satcanon.jpg
ETX-105EC Alt/Az easy aligned
Meade 40mm Eypiece
Canon Powershot S30 Manual Mode
10x Digital zoom
6 images of 1/5s each stacked and processed in Registax.

Hope you'll put them on your guest astrophotography section of the website.

Many thanks

Dave

Subject: saturne
Date: 2/17/04, 09:21
From: Yannick HOLMES (yholmes@gda-intl.com)
A picture of saturne, taken in Paris on the 16/02/2004 with an ETX 105
EC, Barlow 2x, ToUcam Pro.

Add of 198 pictures from 1800/AVI.

PRISM5 "wavelet" 0/5/5/1/1 on RVB pictures.

And change the light and contrast.

Thanks

Subject:
Date: 2/17/04, 09:16
From: Yannick HOLMES (yholmes@gda-intl.com)
My firt shoot of Venus. Taken in Paris the 16/02/2004, with an ETX 105
EC, Barlow 2x and ToUcam Pro. / PRISM 5. (I have just changed the light
and the color)

Good reception

Mike here: PLEASE READ THE Email Etiquette ITEM! Your message was originally DELETED UNREAD as SPAM due to the missing Subject Line.

Subject: Webcam Modifications
Date: 2/17/04, 01:46
From: kevin keyes (fishonkevin@sbcglobal.net)
I just got done reading the latest updated posts to your site. I've seen
posts like Stephan Loveday's concerning webcam modification for long
exposures. I found this website that may be of help to webcam imagers.
It is for the QuickCam and Unconventional Imaging Astronomy Group.
They're address is www.qcuiag.co.uk. Are you familar with them? I didn't
see they're url listed on the Astronomy links page.

I personally have not modified my ToUcam Pro, since I only use it for
planetary imaging. But from what I have read, they're information seems
pretty solid.

I hope this helps,
   Kevin Keyes

Subject: (sans sujet)
Date: 2/16/04, 00:30
From: YannHolmes@aol.com
Hello from Paris,
Sorry for my english. Here's my first shoot of Jupiter. This picture has
been taken on the 14/02/2004 from Paris, with an ETX 105 EC, Barlow 2X
and ToUcam Pro. Add of 100 pictures from 1800. Prism 5 / "Masque flou" 6
and I have changed the light and contraste.

A shoot of Saturne. ETX 105 EC, Barlow 2X, and ToUcam Pro. Taken from
Paris on the 14/02/2004. Add of 360 pictures from 1800. Prism 5 /
"Wavelet 1/4/4/1/1" on RVB pictures. And "Masque flou" 3.

Thanks a lot for your site.

Mike here: PLEASE read the Email Etiquette item on the ETX Site home page; your message was originally seen as SPAM and deleted UNREAD due to the missing subject entry.

Subject: Toucam Pro & Mac
Date: 2/15/04, 16:09
From: Stephen Loveday (loveday@metronet.co.uk)
I'm trying to find out how to modify my Toucam Pro One for long exposure
with my Mac computer.  Do you have any ideas?  Also I'm using Keith's
image stacker, do you know of any other programs that work with a Mac
for automatic stacking and aligning of images?
 
Thanks
 
Steve

Subject: picture of Saturn
Date: 2/14/04, 20:55
From: Dave Adriance (dadriance@swiftkenya.com)
Attached is my latest picture of Saturn, taken on Valentine's Day
(night...) in Nairobi, Kenya with the ETX-125, Meade 2X barlow and a
ToUcam Pro webcam.  900 frames captured at 10 frames/second and 125 best
stacked with K3CCD Tools.  Unsharp masking and contrast adjustment with
Photoshop.

Thanks and regards,

D.

Subject: Moon - Shiller
Date: 2/10/04, 13:01
From: "C.Tex" (carlotes@tiscali.it)
this is Shiller, a particular crater of Moon. It seems to come from the
fusion of 2 craters or from a low-angled meteorite impact. In the future
I'll try to take more details!
Features:
- Meade ETX 105 UHTC and Autostar;
- Philips ToUcam Pro and Baader IR-Cut;
- Barlow Televue 2X.
The image has been processed with Registax.
Best Regards
Carlo

Subject: toucam pro 740k
Date: 1/28/04, 09:00
From: Saverio Riboli (saverioriboli@hotmail.com)
i have read in the site of qcuiag www.qcuiag.co.uk that is possible use
webcams without modification for deep sky use. The site speak of
astrovideo, a software that can sum a video sequence for create an
effect similar at long exposure mode if webcam is suffly sensible.The
webcam philips toucam pro are sensible for this procedure?

Tankyu and sorry if the english is not correct.

Subject: USB webcams in VirtualPC
Date: 1/21/04, 14:20
From: Nick King (nking@synner.co.uk)
Sorry to trouble you.

I just read your report on using the Meade LPI in VirtualPC.

Great report!

My question is simple I suppose. Have you had any other webcams running
under VirtualPC?

I tried it with my ToUcam with no luck, but then I'm not sure if there's
something clever I should be doing. From your report, it seems that
you're just using the standard drivers for the LPI that come with it for
the PC.

Any guidance would be appreciated thanks

I'm running a 15" 1.25Ghz Powerbook with 1Gb RAM, VirtualPC 6.1 with
Windows 2000Pro as the guest OS (512MB RAM allocated to the guest
Machine).

Cheers

Nick King

nking@synner.co.uk
http://www.synner.co.uk
________________

51º 34' 23" N
00º 21' 04" W

And:

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

That's what I thought. I have installed the relevant drivers for the
ToUcam in Windows and enabled the guest machine to use the webcam in the
USB settings, but no luck.

Never mind, I'll keep at it.

Cheers

Nick

Subject: picture of Saturn
Date: 1/10/04, 12:01
From: Dave Adriance (dadriance@swiftkenya.com)
This is my first attempt at imaging Saturn, and I'm pretty pleased with
the results!  Image was taken this evening here in Nairobi, Kenya with a
TouCam Pro web cam through an ETX-125 using K3CCD Tools.  Using the
latter's "planetary wizard" function, I stacked 200 of the best frames
and then applied unsharp masking with Photoshop.

Best regards,

Dave Adriance

Subject: Jupiter
Date: 1/8/04, 19:57
From: Alan Leutloff (leutloffa@juno.com)
ok here's one more for the record book.  This pic of Jupiter taken last
night at 3 am (too much coffee that night).  Taken with a Phillips
Toucam Pro at 60 fr/sec...600 out of 800 images chosen (I used Videodub
to edit) then processed with Registax.  Final image enhanced using
Microsoft Picture It.  Used my ETX 125 and a barlow lens w/ the Toucam.

Have a great week.

Alan

Subject: Images of Jupiter for Planetary Astrophotography Section
Date: 1/8/04, 09:40
From: Howard Visser (howard.visser@cgi.com)
Attached is a composite of images I took of Callistos shadow and the
GRS traversing Jupiters disk on Jan 4th. The images were taken with my
ETX90EC, 2X Barlow and a Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000. Each image file was
taken at 1/5 sec per frame at 5 frames per second for 30 seconds
yielding a 150 frame avi file. The avi files were processed with
RegiStax with some subtle wavelet and saturation adjustments to help
bring out some of the detail.

It was -25 degrees Celsius on Sunday morning so being able to control
and focus the scope from the warmth of my kitchen using Steve Hutsons
ScopeDriver was a real bonus. After 4 hours of flawless performance by
the scope, web camera and software I finally had to call it quits and go
get some much needed sleep! 

Enjoy.

Howard

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