PHD Guiding with Flashed SPC900NC Webcam

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

agreed Chris, although for some people like myself every cents is important and as I could change a lot of my stuff with existing things lying around at home then sometime that can be important. Once I get enough money I will more than likely purchase a unit but am quite happy which my $5.00 modification to a finder-scope and webcam that I already had that I hope will last a while. Not to mention to feeling of achievement to create something.

2 nights ago it gave me an unexpected result using EQalign to provide an extremely accurate polar alignment. I was not able to take photos due to the weather but it has definitely served it's purpose.

I just found an old PCVC 840 and hope to flash to SNC900 and modify it to see how well this could be.

[Nico13 (Ken)]

Originally Posted by Screwdriverone

My new Orion 50mm Mini Guidescope/finderscope is a corker for only $119, its fantastic compared to my dodgy finderscope conversion I did with the toucam....

Parfocal ring means I can set the focus and screw on the ring to the toucam nosepiece, remove it, use the camera in the main scope for Jupiter etc, then plonk it back into the guidescope and its focused!

Best guidescope....and it only weighs less than 500g....

I will post a photo later to show how I have it set up.

Cheers

Chris

Hey Chris how is the Orion Mini for picking up stars in feint area's of sky as a comparison with the Toucam?
I'd be interested to here your comments.

Nico.

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Hi Malcolm,

Yes, I know how satisfying it can be when you "Macgyver" a solution with bits and bobs.....having said that, the relief of not having to worry about the guidescope anymore and by having WAAAAY better images and star detection through the mini guidescope is so much better, it allows me to focus on other things (pun intended) so I can set the cam, guidescope and PHD, forget it, then move onto the important stuff of imaging....

You've inspired me to give EQalign a go, now I have my scope marks on the concrete set up by the pool, I am going to test out my alignment and fine tune hopefully next clear night and see how I go....

Cheers

Chris

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Originally Posted by Nico13

Hey Chris how is the Orion Mini for picking up stars in feint area's of sky as a comparison with the Toucam?
I'd be interested to here your comments.

Nico.

Hi Ken,

I can only compare it to when I had the toucam through the Skywatcher finderscope as I bodgied it up to the end of that after removing the cross hair eyepiece end and then played around with the focus....

Conservatively and considering the stars are SHARPLY in focus now....I would say its twice as good as before, with the Orion mini guide scope, and it can EASILY pick up say mag 8 stars depending on the exposure length and if you take a dark frame through PHD also...

I love it. Best $119 I have spent on the scope so far.

Cheers

Chris

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by Screwdriverone

You've inspired me to give EQalign a go, now I have my scope marks on the concrete set up by the pool, I am going to test out my alignment and fine tune hopefully next clear night and see how I go....

Cheers

Chris

I tried EQAlign only once so maybe I fluked something. I am concerned that EQAlign has stopped development. The website is not very active although it says new version being developed.

My main concern is ASCOM support. It only has support for 4.1. Although it seems to work , one thing I noticed I was unable to slew easily. I overcome this by using EQMOD slewing but I am not sure if it affects it overall operation.
One thing I really like is the Initialisation of the cross-hairs, it really is impressive.

Thunderstorms here for the next couple of days so I will not be able to check it out for a while.

[Nico13 (Ken)]

Thanks Chris,
You see the Guider setup I'm making at the moment is an adaptor to fit the Toucam to my SLR camera lenses so I'm yet to see what the field of view is with different lenses fitted and also it may well be suited to video work.

If that all works then I would need another guide scope and as I have a second Toucam I will have that option so the mini 50 looks like it could be viable for me as I don't have a huge budget for all this.

just waiting for a 1.6mm tap to turn up so I can tap the threads for the mounting ring srews, tiny little buggers, . Should be here today with luck so I can play over the weekend.

Nico.