Basic webcam photography for a basic telescope

[hoffman_man]

Hi everyone.

As a long time lurker and first time poster, I'd like to say first of all, thanks very much for everyone's contributions to this site so far. It has been a wealth of information in helping me develop my interest in this amazing hobby.

I am only very new to astronomy, but have had an interest for many years. I started out with binos and a planisphere and for Christmas was given a telescope. My scope is one of the lower end newtonian gotos that Meade produce. Not bad for what it is, but at 4.5 inches it's not exactly Hubble.

In a fit of madness on Friday, I decided to shoot some .avi footage of Jupiter with our home digi-cam. Attached is the results, after going through registax and PS. This was taken by simply holding the camera up to the eyepiece (12mm pl). I know that the image is less than impressive, but the sense of satisfaction I got out of even achieving this has been pretty good. As such, I am keen to keep shooting images through the little Meade to see just how far I can push the little thing; hence the reason for this post.

The Philips Toucam seems a pretty popular unit for imaging. As the image is projected directly onto the ccd, how much is the image magnified? Would you say the Toucam is the equivalent of a 12mm ep or smaller?

In a little scope like my own, would I see much anyway? Is what I'm hoping to achieve beyond the capabilities of the little tyke? The other option I'm toying with is one of the steady-pic mounts that are on the market. These are the mounts that hold a camera directly up to the eyepiece. The camera I have is a Kodak DX6340. It's 3.1MP but does allow for manual adjustment. Unfortunately it only shoots video at 320x200.

What is everyone's thoughts on the matter? The toucam is a little more expensive than the mount granted, but would the results be worth it? If I go down the Toucam path, is the IR filter really needed?

Cheers

P.S. Does anyone out there have the same scope that I do? I'm interested to hear what your battery life is like?

[rumples riot]

Using the Toucam is the way to go, no need to get the IR filter, as you would have seen some of my shots and I don't use one.

You might like to buy a good quality barlow something around 2x. I think if you went any higher the scope would not handle the increased magnification.

An example of what I mean is this. I own a 10" meade that has a focal length of 2500mm and I add a powermate (barlow) of 2.5 times. So this is expressed as 2500 x 2.5 = 6250. Now divide this figure by the toucam approximate focal length of 6mm. So this is expressed as 6250 / 6= 1041 mag. Now in the specs on my scope it has a visual magnification of 650x. The above figure is obviously way beyond the useable visual magnification, however I get pretty good planetary shots. On nights of good seeing I use a 5x powermate. You can work out the sums. If I look in the scope with the powermate in and use a 12mm EP, the image is not very good because it is beyond the visual mag of the scope. The toucam is different to our eyes and can use higher magnifications.

So all you need to do is find the focal length of your scope and do the above sums.

Best of luck

[rumples riot]

BTW, welcome to the site.

[[1ponders]]

Keith I have a 4" refractor that takes lovely images of saturn and jupiter using the ToUcam. Because of the short focal length (1000mm, probably similar to yours) the image is faily small though adding a barlow certainly helps. Unfortunagely I've deleted my image but if I can get a clear night soon I'll take some more and post them for you to see. Mind you mine does track so that is an advantage. What mount is your scope mounted on. Maybe include an image of it.

If you want to go for planetary and lunar images then the ToUcam is the way to go, though with a steady pic mount you will be able to do a lot of things, though it will be a challenge for you. The process you are using is called Afocal imaging and depending on the eyepiece you are using you will be able to achieve quite good magnification if the seeing will allow it. It is harder than prime focus though (ToUcam in place of the eyepiece) as you have alignment and secondary focus issues to deal with.

Given the choice my preference is to go with the ToUcam. I have a frame for attaching a digital camera to the eyepiece for afocal shooting and I find it can be very frustrating at times tyring to get everything lined up just right. Its not impossible though, I guess it depends on the type of attachment you are using.

Hope this jumble has been of help


Cheers

[hoffman_man]

Thanks for the welcome.

My scope is the DS-2114ATS that Meade produces. It tracks reasonably well, depending on the quality of the initial alignment. I've included a pic of it below.

I'm thinking that the Toucam will most likely be the option for me, and when I trade up scopes it will still be of use.

I'm still happy to hear differing opinions though.

Cheers!

[[1ponders]]

With your setup definately ToUcam is the way to go. And definately get a good barlow for image magnification. You should be able to take fine shots with that.

[iceman]

Hi Keith.

The ToUcam is definitely the way to go, assuming you have a laptop to run next to the scope.

Depending on the focal length of your scope, the image may or may not be larger than what you can achieve with afocal, especially given that with afocal you can use the optical zoom of the camera, and also the high resolution to crop the images.

But the ToUcam will ultimately produce better images given its ability to capture many frames in a short period of time, capturing the best images during moments of good seeing.

What's the focal length of that scope? It looks like a short tube newt?

[hoffman_man]

Yes Mike it is a short tube newt. It does have a 1000mm focal length, but this is only achieved by having a small lens installed at the base of the focuser. Basically it has an inbuilt barlow.

With the above focal length just what can I expect to see with the Toucam?

Cheers

[iceman]

With the ToUcam at prime focus, you can probably expect to see something (size-wise) like the attached pic of Jupiter, which was originally a 2000mm FL shot through Louie's Tak, and then shrunk half size to emulate a 1000mm FL.

But also, that was through a 4" Tak. Your meade is not a Tak, and having the inbuilt barlow is certainly going to degrade image quality a bit.

To get a bigger image scale you'll need to use a 2x or 3x barlow in combination - i'm just not sure how much degredation in image quality you'll get having to go through two barlows. But it's certainly worth a shot.

[iceman]

You might expect something like this shot for a while, which was at prime focus (1250mm FL) in my 10" dob.

[[1ponders]]

Snagged a bit of clear weather last night Keith so I quickly grabbed a couple of Avies of jupiter to give you a comparison

ToUcam on a Celestron EQ 102 HD refractor, f/10, FL 1000, 2x omni barlow. about 750 images stacked in Registax 3, waveletting and colour adjustments only in Registax.