Weasner's Webcam Astrophotography Page

ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY WITH THE WEBCAMS

Last updated: 8 December 2008

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

Subject:	Etx 125 user RE- Phillips Orite CCD Web cam PC370R
Sent:	Friday, December 5, 2008 06:46:04
From:	aol (Stpferris@aol.com)
Hi from rainy England, Any help,I have aquired the above CCd camera,
havent got a clue what to do with it, but I do Know i Need a
Driver/softwear any idea how to get the stuff? needs to work in Windows
XP. Regards Steve.

Mike here: I have no experience with webcams in Windows (since I don't use Windows). Perhaps someone will respond.

Subject:	Etx 125PE Webcam Adapter
Sent:	Tuesday, July 15, 2008 08:45:54
From:	User721401@aol.com (User721401@aol.com)
I have the newest phillips toucam but I do not have an adapter for it. 
Is there any specs out on how to make an adapter?
 
Thanks
 
Dan

Mike here: There are several webcam articles as well as adapter articles on the Helpful Information: Astrophotography page.

Subject:	Pictures of the moon and Jupiter
Sent:	Friday, July 4, 2008 02:42:02
From:	romain (tigrouf@wanadoo.fr)
Even in france, your website is known. Since I bought a new ETX-125, I
spend my time regularly on your website.

With a webcam, I had the opportunity to make a few first pictures.

Here is a piece of moon and Jupiter.

For the moon, SPC900 color, stacking of 50/200 images with Iris

For Jupiter, SPC900 B&W, stacking of 800/1800 images with Iris but too
much compression with 15 im/sec.

In both cases there was some turbulence, but these are my first
pictures.

Au revoir.
Romain

Romain BOUCHET
LYON
FRANCE

Subject:	AW: comparison saturn with Bresser PC-ocular vs. Philips SPC900 NC
Sent:	Monday, May 26, 2008 00:55:04
From:	Dr.-Ing. Michael Schroder (mschroeder@schroeder-kg.de)
Thanks for your answer. 

Finding saturn with the eyepiece was no problem. But I found it
difficult (compared to the Bresser PC-ocular) to focus the planet with
the Philips webcam as one could hardly see it on the monitor.
(before-after-picture with the Philips-webcam compared to the
before-after-picture of the PC-ocular). Is there a way to get a better
live-picture or am I just at the limit of my equipment.

M. Schroeder

Mike here: Don't know about getting a better "live picture" but you could make a "focus scale" to help with focusing. Add a couple of marks or scale to the focus knob and the base next to the knob. Then focus on a bright object, like the Moon, and mark the position or note the number on the scale. This should allow you to repeat the focus position.

And:

Thanks again.

That's worth a try. My problem is that the focus of the webcam is so
much diffrent from my eyepiece. So on the notebookscreen the planet is
very hard to see. When the image is focused I see something like the
example in the before-after-picture of the philips webcam.

Could you judge if this is a typical screen image with a philips webcam
or am I doing something wrong. The seeing on that night was not too good
either.

I saw that you posted the before-after-pic of the bresser-ocular. Maybe
you should attach the before-afetr-pic of the philips webcam for
comparison.

Mike here: I meant to focus on the bright object WITH the webcam. An alternative to marking the webcam focus position would be to make a "parfocal" eyepiece. Focus with the webcam and then swap in an eyepiece. Move the eyepiece in the holder until you get focus. Then mark the position of the eyepiece. There are "parfocal rings" available to "lock in" this position. Note: not all eyepieces will work for this technique. Since I don't use a webcam, hard to say whether or not this is normal. BUT a single frame from ANY imager is usually hard to see and focus. You could make a "Hartmann Mask"; see the Helpful Information: Astrophotography page for more info. There was only 1 file in the RAR archive and that is the one I posted. As noted on the "Email Etiquette" page: "Any photos sent should be in JPEG format. Some email systems may require that you encode the image file using Zip or StuffIt." I don't suggest RAR.

And:

Thanks for your quick answers. That is amazing.

I will try the parfocal-ring. I am not sure about the hartman-mask.

As for the missing picture, I have (again) no idea what happend. I send
you the missing picture packed as a zip-file. The original idea of the
mail was the difference in picture-quality between the pc-ocular and the
webcam. The pc-ocular provides a good (and easy to locate image) on the
screen, whereas the webcam has a disapointingly bad live-picture but the
final result after the tweaking with giotto and Paintsho Pro was (at
least for me) amazingly good.



You (and your website) are a great help. Thank you again.

M. Schroeder

Subject:	comparison saturn with Bresser PC-ocular vs. Philips SPC900 NC
Sent:	Sunday, May 25, 2008 11:46:24
From:	Dr.-Ing. Michael Schroder (m-schr@web.de)
I'd like to share some pictures of saturn I took two nights ago. This
was the first time that I used my new Philips SPC900NC. I really had
trouble finding saturn with the Philips webcam; whereas I had no
problems with the Bresser PC-ocular. The live pictures of the webcam
were really disappointing compared to the ones I shot with the Bresser
PC-ocular. But I was stunned of the results after the overlay with
giotto and the tweaking with Paintshop Pro. Still I wonder why I have so
much problems with finding saturn using the webcam. I used maximum
brightness and gain and still could hardly see the planet. Maybe you
have some advice for me. With a better avi-file one could really shoot
nice pictures using the Philips webcam.

Greetings from Germany

P.S.
I really enjoy reading your book. Excellent help for newbies like me.

Mike here: Aligning the finderscope using a high power eyepiece in the ETX will be a big help when using an imager. Of course, with the Red-Dot Smartfinder it is difficult but not impossible.

Go to the September-October 2007 Webcam Astrophotography Page.

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