I went out on my first astrophotography outing last night and I could not figure out why I couldn't get the moon focused with my webcam. I'm pretty sure I have it hooked up right. The only thing I can think of is that maybe I was supposed to screw the webcam lens into the Mogg adapter after I installed it, but in all the tutorials I've seen, no one says to screw the lens back in, so that's probably not it.

I'm going to go back out tonight to try again, but I was hoping maybe someone might know what I'm doing wrong and can save me a little time.

Am I also supposed to remove the diagonal mirror where the eyepieces go into? I tried it with and without it and still just got a white blob when I get the moon lined up. This could have something to do with my camera settings too. I'm such a noob LOL

 Thank you very much for any help anyone can give me.

Are you using it at prime focus or afocal projection? Prime focus is better. You have to remove the lens from the camera. Afocal projection doesn't seem to focus completely, with the moon it focusses well in one region, but blurred oin all others.

But with Prime focus, you may find you don't have the travel range in your focuser because the focal point is further away with the camera than it is with eyepieces. In my case I needed to go an extra 1-2 cm in towards the mirror. Had to modify the focuser to allow this.

You also might be saturating the detector because the moon is so bright. Ths is easier to solve if you can switch off the AGC (Automatic Gain Control). Adjust the exposure and gain manually. AGC doesn't work well with astrophotography.

This was the first time I used the web cam so the settings were all the defaults. I tried messing with them a little but couldn't really improve the picture on my screen from the white blob. I will make those adjustments tonight and let you know how it turned out tomorrow.

I really appreciate the advice Telenoob. I would've never figured that out on my own. You saved me from more frustration tonight. Thank you

i just got my webcam and tried for a few mins last night as i had guests over that were hogging the eyepiece, but i admit i am also having the same problem, although i dindt put to much time into it

i think ill take the same advice and be a little more patient on getting it right.

think its a focusing issue, and some of the settings in the vlounge software, should be easily overcome in time though. there are way to many images of some killer objects with this little cam for it to just not work.....well get there eventually

SirZeusor:

i just got my webcam and tried for a few mins last night as i had guests over that were hogging the eyepiece, but i admit i am also having the same problem, although i dindt put to much time into it

i think ill take the same advice and be a little more patient on getting it right.

think its a focusing issue, and some of the settings in the vlounge software, should be easily overcome in time though. there are way to many images of some killer objects with this little cam for it to just not work.....well get there eventually

Don't use the auto settings!  Set the frame rate to a slow rate around 15 FPS. At first it will look terrible. Then adjust the exposure and gain as low as you can and still be able to focus the image.  Adjust your brightness and contrast about midway.  That should be a good enough starting point, then as you work on focusing it you will have to tweak each adjustment a little.  You want the background black and the planet so that it is not so bright that will be overexposed. 

Once you get it focused it might still look a little low on contrast and detail, however, when you take about 60 to 90 seconds of video then convert and stack the best of the frames you will get a nice clean image.

Have A Nice ___________

That's good to hear that I'm not alone SirZ. I never thought any of this was going to be easy and I just need to have some patience myself. I was getting frustrated last night but I think that's because I was tired from not getting enough sleep lately. I'm going to have to start bringing a thermos of coffee with me or something, 'cause once it hits around midnight I start to fade away. LOL

I'm sure we'll get the hang of it eventually. The weather conditions here are improving quite a bit, so it looks like I'll be out there again tonight to give it another shot.

Thank you Tim!

Hey Sir Zeusor, I don't know if this will help you out at all, but I thought I'd let you know how I got my webcam working. I remembered what Telenoob was saying about how he had to move his an extra 1-2 cm towrds the mirror. I had had my webcam pushed all the way in the focuser, but when I pulled it back just a bit is when the picture on my screen started getting better. You just have to find the sweet spot. Then I messed around with the settings and got an even better picture. I'm definitely getting the hang of it now. It was such a great feeling to know that it works and I can get some really good moon shots now with the webcam and digital cam. I'm having a lot of fun!

yes i also did some reasearch and i ended up using part of my barlow, which gave me enough focus length to get it dead on

since the skies here in ohio have not been cooperating lately, i played around with a radio tower a few miles down the road to focus, and YES its right on

also , in stead of using my barlow, if i dont want that king of magnification, i fabricated an extension tube at work on the laithe from some plastic piping we had lying around, and painted it black, drilled and tapped a few holes in it to hold the camera, and it works like a charm

thanks!

Right on! That didn't take us as long as I thought it would. Now I just hope your skies start cooperating soon so you can put that webcam to good use.

well i got out the spc900nc this morning, and gave it a try.

besided the fact that i can have a little more control over the settings compared to my point and shoot, i think the point and shoot took better movie files, even at the same resolution, by far!

this can't be right?

collimation was right on , looked great ( jupiter that is) in the eyepeice

saw moons, cloud bands, the works, then i poped in the webcam

i tried everything, straight in the focuser, moved out a bit, in, barlowed, unbarlowed, filter, no filter, upside down, right side up, make shift focal reducer, focal increaser moving it out,

there sgot to be something i am missing, or i need to realy hook this thing up to my monster computer, and take some more files and registack them  ( my laptop is from the bronze age )

i got to be missing something else?....i even read the thread here on how one person in particular sets theres up............i did that, and it still wasnt any better

going to post this in the other help with webcam thread, see what others have to say

i didnt even bother taking any photos.......

I just got a Phillips webcam also, was going to use it last night but it was a bit too cloudy. I found this site and it has some pretty good tips, http://www.astro.shoregalaxy.com/webcam_astro.htm  It's supposed to be clear tonight so I'm hoping to give it a try tonight.

SirZeusor:

there sgot to be something i am missing, or i need to realy hook this thing up to my monster computer, and take some more files and registack them  ( my laptop is from the bronze age )

To get good results, you must make an avi then process it with a program like Registax, limiting your final stack to the images with best quality. Registax does that superbly.

The webcam allows you to make many individual frames of short duration (1/30th second for example). Out of the hundreds or thousands of such individual frames in an AVI, many of them of them will have been made during instants of better seeing than the others. Registering, stacking, and post-processing with wavelets will bring out the detail.

If you just look at individual frames, without such processing, you will have inferior results.

Here is an example from a 6-inch refractor:

That is an animated GIF file, made by stitching together the final stacked frames from 45 different AVI files, each of which was processed by Registax. Note that some frames are much blurrier than others. That is because as Jupiter moved overhead there were times when the seeing varied and times when the planet was over a treeline. There is quite a dramatic change due to the seeing. This was done a couple of years ago, when Jupiter was high in the sky for Northern Hemisphere observers.

If the animation above doesn't run for you, click here and then click All Sizes to run it from Flickr!

This year Jupiter is quite low in the sky for Northern Hemisphere observers, presenting more of a challenge to image. Your best chance will occur when Jupiter culiminates at your location (when it is due South of you, crossing the N/S meridian, and therefore highest in the sky for a given location).

Here is a trick I learned recently to help with the frustrations of finding focus with the webcam. I started out in the early evening when it was still light out, pointed the scope to a tall tree far away. Plugged in the webcam, (no barlow) and adjusted focus until I could see a well defined branch at the top of the tree. Then I carefully removed the cam and inserted a 12mm eyepiece. Then without adjusting the focuser, I slowly moved the eyepiece outward until I could see the branch clearly. For me it turned out that the eyepiece had to be held just flush to the entranceway of the focuser.

Then at night I started with the eyepiece while looking at Saturn. I held the eyepiece in the same approximate position as was found before, and tweaked the focuser until the image looked fairly sharp. Plug in the camera and voila... not perfectly focused, but close enough to see it well. Then only needed to make a small adjustment to focusing to bring it in nice and sharp.

With this method I moved the eyepiece focal point out to the same point as where the camera ccd chip would focus. Theres other ways to do the same thing by using extenders etc.

I've subsequently found that there is a device that helps you to do this, called a "Par-focal ring", it lets you essentialy adjust any 1.25" eyepiece to be the same focal distance as yer camera. Then when you want to use the camera, you first focus with the eyepiece.and your own eyes. Then carefully put the camera in and it should be in the right place. Much more reliable, and faster, than trying to tweez it in the video preview window.

Thanks for demonstrating Jupiter in that animated Gif file. Its interesting to see how much variation there is sometimes, all done while using the same equipment and same scope operator, I presume. Very educational!

Now I don't feel so bad, about my latest observations of Jupiter low on the horizon. It might get better later on when it appears higher in the night sky.

Must check for it later tonight, after NHL Hockey of course! ;)

Should be showing up around 12:30-1am

TeleNoob:

Thanks for demonstrating Jupiter in that animated Gif file. Its interesting to see how much variation there is sometimes, all done while using the same equipment and same scope operator, I presume. Very educational!

Yep. Same scope, camera, mount, operator (me) and same time/location (my driveway). I made a series of about 50 AVIs, one after another, and then processed them with Registax into single frames, then stitched those frames together into an animated GIF file.

Jupiter moved from just past my roofline, over and across a clear view from my driveway, to the West over a couple of Live Oak trees whose respiration caused the crummy last few frames.