During my allocation of 1 clear night for August I had another go at Jupiter using my webcam with dismal results. I still can't get anything other than a featureless disc.
When I wind exposure and brightness up to max I get the attached image of Jupiter with 3 moons. This gives me some hope that I am just doing it all wrong and need to find the right settings.
Or, maybe I'm just looney and should stick to the moon.
When I wind the exposure and brightness back the moons go but I can't get any surface detail. Any suggestions about how to go about this
Yeah, I guess I should come clean.
It's a M$ Lifecam HD. As per here it can work.
The second part of my extreme testing is I only have an 80mm refractor.
I'm not expecting miracles but I think I should be able to get something.
Your only bet is to use filters. I use double polarizing filters to further reduce light. The exposure control is already at minimum but I find these highly in-effective. The auto exposure looks at the overall capture and compensates, this is great for the moon in most cases but planetary is just no good at all. The overall picture is mostly black.
BTW noticed on the mod website they set the brightness to minimum and the contrast to maximum, then bring up the controls from there. Not sure if this gives the best results but I may try it myself on mine one day.
I was wondering about filters and the fact that having removed the webcam lense the IR cut filter goes with it. What impact does this have on the sensor and the settings I need to use?
Not much really, although I have noticed dirt spots on the sensor are more readily seen (can be good and bad) apart from that, the main benefit is no alteration of the contrast with a possible real colour. Altering Brightness and contrast i am not really sure of the affect. In my early days I had no EQ to track the planets but will have mine completed fairly soon. With that i hope to continue testing the webcam with better results.
I use IR cut as well, improves sharpness and contrast, but it wont help the problem your experiencing. Definately something you should invest for planetary
Tried again last night but no great break through. I have some basic colour filters so I put them in. Seemed to make a little bit of difference on the screen but not enough to get a result.
I believe the main problem is the drivers, my webcam I think uses the same drivers and the exposure control is next to useless. I used a few filter on my DOB recently. I recently after a long break decided to get into webcam imaging again and with reasonable results. http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=65540
I used double polarising filter and IR filter for non barlow, and moon filter with IR filter with Barlow imaging.
Have one of these modified Microsoft HD cams ourselves, not used it much, but to the point, here is a reference to some software that you may like to look at, still unable to adjust the gain - but that seems to be a feature in the camera.
I have no connection to the software other than its on my netbook and I also 'lurk' on the UK astro forum that prompted it.
Have one of these modified Microsoft HD cams ourselves, not used it much, but to the point, here is a reference to some software that you may like to look at, still unable to adjust the gain - but that seems to be a feature in the camera.
I have no connection to the software other than its on my netbook and I also 'lurk' on the UK astro forum that prompted it.
This has a nice application but it restricted to the Drivers. Tied it myself for my HD webcam but the control schema was blank. Only the ability to select resolution, color space and frame rate, all other controls were not there.
I still like the interface so I am gonna play with the drivers, hope this works.
I still can't get anything other than a featureless disc.
and should stick to the moon.
