Webcam Astro pics using the Philips SPC900nc
The Philips SPC900nc is a very sensitive webcam readily available from suppliers, eg: Amazon
It's really easy to use as a planetary camera- just get a 1.25" adaptor -from Steve in Australia - - (for a Philips spc900nc you need a W900NC-F) or from elsewhere or even homemade.. unclip the large black part, prise off the focus ring, unscrew the lens and screw in the adaptor!
I put a clear glass 'filter' on the end to stop any dust getting in - I also have an IR filter which I got from telescope-service in Germany also available from: telescopehouse.co.uk , useful if using the Barlow - the IR filter is supposed to give clearer results because the camera is sensitive to infra red and this will be focused differently by any lenses and could blur the shot.
I use AMCAP to take a few movie frames and then convert them to old format avi 's with 'virtual dub' and then (try to) stack them with registax and process them... still working on this ..! I converted the avi files with windvd creator to get them small enough for the website- originals are over 500MB !!
But that's only good for bright planets and the moon... now I want to do long exposures....
I have modified my Philips SPC900nc camera (with mogg adapter)- using M.M.J.Meijer 's fantastic website.
If you want to do long exposure pics - this is a great site - his work is based on Steve Chambers very excellent mods for the predecessors of this camera.
My mod does not look as good as Mr Meijer's- but it does the job.... The spc900nc is really quite easy to modify - just a bit of soldering and gluing - no tiny tracks to cut as the boards come apart conveniently ! I couldn't get all that mess back into the original casing (it's just too cramped but you might manage..) so I cut of the front 2-3 mm of the case and screwed the mogg adaptor in from the other side of the box (cut with the right sized hole) and glued it in place... messy but plenty of space! Maybe one day I'll add some cooling ... and do the amp off mod....
I have been using Steve Chambers Desire capture program - available from here: - the K3CCD tools is a popular alternative- - and the parallel port control system. I have had some problems with the use of the parallel port on some computers- sometimes pin 2 doesn't go low voltage during the exposure... check with a voltmeter or for a nice visual effect: get a 25 pin connector and wire up an led and 470 ohm resistor in series across pin 2 and 21 (check for polarity of the led)
The LED should switch on when plugged into the parallel port and off when you press 'Start' with the desire program running - until the end of the exposure. You could alternatively just use a voltmeter to check that it goes from high ~5V to low (nearly 0) during the long exposure. If this doesn't happen- which I found on 2 computers... I have been able to get it to work by either: going into bios settings (del- on start-up) and changing the lpt port to ECP. or going into control panel, system, device manager, com and lpt ports ... and then uninstalling the lpt port driver... Both of these worked for me :-) - I tried the second way as my work laptop has the bios password protected and so I can't access it- seems to work fine .. don't need to print with it so I haven't checked but guess that printing may not work anymore from lpt1 if you do this (shouldn't affect USB printers though).
If you do not have a parallel port on your laptop (and don't fancy taking your pc outside !) then you need a USB to serial converter cable and this website... from Mr Meijer (which I haven't tried but reckon will be increasingly of interest as new laptops don't have parallel or serial ports on them).
Below is a 10s dark frame and a pic of the camera with the lens cap off. There's a switch at the top to set it to long or short exposures.
Also once you get the led going off on the tester connector you then need to unplug it - plug in your camera connector and USB plug and go to Camera , source, picture and select 5 frames per sec and unclick full automatic control- then... set the gain to about 75% (from the left) and take a couple of snapshots with the camera 99%covered on 1 second and then 10 second exposures.. you should see a marked brightening of the picture the longer the exposure.. ) try a few more and do a long one on 30 secs or so for a dark frame and a short one from a uniformly lit surface for a flat frame...... Choose the level of gain that gives you the best exposure without too much noise on the picture - you can play with the white balance too...
Now I'm ready to try for some deep sky long exposures... just need to get my scope to track properly....
This is a great site on the older version of the camera..