Visiting the local Kmart this morning I saw their webcams -"JLR-89363" for $5.
Bought one and found the lens just screwed off (like the ol' Philips webcams) and my std 1.25" webcam nosepiece just screwed straight on.
Fired up SharpCap and it recognised it immediately and presented all the controls as being available.
It seems to use YUY2 for 640 x 480 video at 30 fps......
May be of interest to the newbies looking for a cheaper way to get into astro-imaging (solar/lunar/planetary)????
I've done that with one i got at Woolworth's for about the same a couple years ago. Not sure the model but did a tiny bit of planetary with it. It didn't get that much use though as the scope I was using at the time required a barlow as well to allow it to focus. (and with a really really crappy manual EQ mount.)
got this pic of saturn out of it though which was happy enough at the time.
Yeah.....
The interesting thing about this one is the ease of "de-construction" to add a pretty standard nosepiece. Only requires a small instrument screwdriver to remove the base.....
I'm sure if you knocked out/ drilled out the lens - you could use the plastic threaded lens holder body to glue into any suitable sized piece of tube (film canister?)
yeah, ive found any of the webcams with manual focus are really easy to dismantle. I usually find myself buying any one that looks easy to hack apart to replace the IR block filter and make cheap IR webcams for a few friends to experiement with.
The major difficulty I had when trying to do anything astro with them is the variable ability to adjust exposure settings. Some are better than others, but most of them rely heavily on 'auto' settings.
I've been looking at a cheap way to give this a go.. thank you for the headsup, the local Kmart had them in stock.
I just need to figure out how to DIY an adapter or locate one cheap...
Edit: Okay, I made an adapter out of an old film canister, some careful (sort of) drilling & cutting of both the film canister & lens piece & a bit of gluing. It ain't the prettiest or necessarily the most robust thing I've seen but, hopeful it will do the job for now whilst I experiment.
The major difficulty I had when trying to do anything astro with them is the variable ability to adjust exposure settings. Some are better than others, but most of them rely heavily on 'auto' settings.
Ditto - i have found that "driverless" or "UVC" webcams lack proper exposure control....
good enough for the moon, but useless for the planets.
I would be interested in how you go though - for $5 it'd be a good spare!
Guys,
Under SharpCap you seem to have full control of gain, brightness, contrast, and exposure control etc.
I assume the other webcam software does the same....
I've never done this before so, hoping for some clearing of clouds (probably sometime around April) so I can get out and experiment a little with this.
What's this ? A competition to see who can take the best astro pic with the cheapest gear ?? The more DIY the better, bring out the gaffer tape and Bondofil.
[QUOTE=Merlin66;1062449]Guys,
Under SharpCap you seem to have full control of gain, brightness, contrast, and exposure control etc.
I assume the other webcam software does the same....[/QUOTE
Yep the software has the controls, but unless the driver interfaces with them
They will be greyed out and unusable.
The uvc drivers do give you some control but won't disable auto exposure
Which will (in the case of planetary) result in over exposure.
It will still work OK for lunar or any object that fills the frame.
Guys,
Under SharpCap you seem to have full control of gain, brightness, contrast, and exposure control etc.
I assume the other webcam software does the same....[/QUOTE
Yep the software has the controls, but unless the driver interfaces with them
They will be greyed out and unusable.
The uvc drivers do give you some control but won't disable auto exposure
Which will (in the case of planetary) result in over exposure.
It will still work OK for lunar or any object that fills the frame.
Cheers,
Gain, brightness & contrast controls do seem to be enabled in SharpCap. The only control I could find for exposure was under the 'Show' Filter Options button & yes, this was greyed out. I can see how this might be a problem for bright objects if you can't control the exposure but, will be interested to see just how bad or perhaps how well it fairs.
Looking forward to some clear(isn) skys here in Cairns to have a play with this. I've only ever done Afocal work & only a very little bit with my telescope before so, it will be interesting to see how this goes. At worst, it's a $5 failed experiment... at best, it is a very cheap intro to low quality planetary & lunar photography that might wet my appetite to try something a little better in quality.
I'll see how it goes & if there is any success I will be sure to post the resultant images on IIS even if they are fairly low quality.
Had a bit of a look see with my 80mm ED mounted on a recently acquired Ioptron Cube Pro. More on that in a separate post; generally good but, will take a little getting used to.
After some visual enjoyment of Jupiter & Orion Nebula I thought I'd give the $5 webcam a go on Jupiter... hmmmm, it's not good. My first go at using a webcam of any sort but, I understand Merlin66's comments so much better now.
I managed to capture Jupiter & three moons but, they are waaaaay over exposed & despite playing with a number of controls that were available I could only succeed in making it worse. I will post a copy of what I captured here but, not right now as it's a little late....
I still would like to try it on the moon but, that wasn't possible from where I was viewing tonight without moving to the front of the house & resetting up the scope which, I wasn't prepared to do.
If its any consolation- i have found that with logitech or MS webcams
you get manual control...
just a matter of finding one for $5 ;-)
Cheers, I'll be looking in the clearance bins :-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Merlin66
Carlton,
Which capture software were you using?
I was using Sharpcap, there was no facility to adjust exposure that I could find. I was able to capture a minute of video but, the objects are extremely bright with no detail whatsoever.
Yeah,
I finally did some comparison tests $5 v's SPC900 webcam - NO comparison!!
I'm sorry to say it's a dud!
Don't even waste the $5 in buying one to play with......
There would be better sensitivity with the SPC900s CCD compared to
a CMOS budget webcam, but.....you never know...with enough
searching of budget bins a real find may show up.
I found that some of the CMOS sensors, though quite good and sensitive on
preview, went into a different setting once you started actual capture.
