Well had a bit of a play thursday night first time capturing video and first time using registax.
Unguided and mounted on my 8" Meade SCT Super Polaris EQ with Autostar driving.
Got home from work to a clear sky and almost full moon so dragged the peer out and checked everything together.
Took a bit to get video settings close and then captured a few runs on Jupiter and then the moon for a bit.
Had a strange shadow appear when looking at the moon only to realise I had a small spider had got into the works and was dangling his legs in front of the sensor.
The crack in the moons surface at the top of the image is where the spider was dangling, registax made the crack out of it.
Anyway I was happy just to get some images happening and then a bit of a play with registax 5.
Steep learning curve an a lot to go yet but just happy it all worked.
A couple of images to look at with fucus and artifact issues but it works and can get better with some more practice.
Bob,
Did you get your problem fixed?
Sounds like you need to move the main mirror up inside the tube by 10-20mm. There may be enough in the length of the collimating screws to get you there....
Haven't had much luck with clear skies for the last 6 months, but did manage one night last week, still with a bit of high cloud. Stacked image (Registax) of 125 frames.
Yes, I fixed the problem but not by moving the main mirror up a bit. That was one of the options but since I am visual user I opted to modify adapter for camera a bit
I needed just a few mm to get in focus. Since I have some cheap 2" eyepiece that I dont use I unscrew the barrel of it (the bit that goes into the focuser). Then I put camera with adapter in it and centered it with 3 balls of glutak as good as I could. This way I gained approx. half a cm, more than enough to get in focus.
Last night I finally could see Jupiter bands and made short movie of it.
Instead of looking at ancient USB 1.1 webcam design you can look at USB 2.0 webcams like any top-brand true HD capable cameras (like MS LifeCam HD-5000/6000/Cinema...). Higher speeds and more pixels which comes in handy for Moon etc. You won't be able to do long exposure mods but it's not needed for solar system imaging... And I would even say that those modern webcams may be more sensitive than ancient ICX098
I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert, but is the lifecam a ccd or cmos sensor? I can't seem to find any specs. It also seems to capture at 30 fps whereas the Merlincam can capture up to 90 fps in native software and up to 60 fps in K3CCDTools. Is K3 able to use the lifecam to capture? Is the format output able to be put in a program like Registax for stacking and processing? I used the clubs Astrovid to capture some avis a while ago and I had to run the file through Virtualdub (I think it was) to save it in a format that is usable... bit of a pain really.
Might be old tech, but it works and works well. If advancement in tech was seamless I would have downgraded to Vista from XP long ago... we all know how advanced Vista is/was .
Quote:
Originally Posted by riklaunim
Instead of looking at ancient USB 1.1 webcam design you can look at USB 2.0 webcams like any top-brand true HD capable cameras (like MS LifeCam HD-5000/6000/Cinema...). Higher speeds and more pixels which comes in handy for Moon etc. You won't be able to do long exposure mods but it's not needed for solar system imaging... And I would even say that those modern webcams may be more sensitive than ancient ICX098
It's a CMOS sensor with quite small pixels I think (no specs from MS). It's a 10 FPS at 1280x800 RGB24 capable camera so it's something bigger. I'm playing with few webcams for "fun" and to check, mythbust some astro-webcam myths
Here are few Moon shots from the HD-5000 (SCT 8" at f/10, images converted to grayscale, SharpCap - capture, AVIs stacked in Registax, deconvolution in AstraImage):
Comparing the crater sizes with image from Basler Ace with 5,6x5,6 micrometer pixels I say this CMOS has smaller (which give higher resolution). CMOS like to have even 2,2 x 2,2 micrometer pixels. (Unless the webcam is interpolating higher res).
Received mine today, HOOAH!... 15 days from order. No original packaging though (looks like they took it out of the package to make it smaller for shipping).
FYI, if anyone is trying to run this cam on their Samsung Netbook, running Windows 7 Basic - don't use the Windows 7 Driver, it crashes like you wouldn't believe.
but did manage one night last week, still with a bit of high cloud. Stacked image (Registax) of 125 frames.
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