The little hacked webcam and a telescope!

Of course, these images don't do the planet any justice.

These were my first attempt at using a hacked webcam attached to telescope to get images.

The software is also critical for success, and it was my first time to use those applications, and they are just incredible.

The first program is K3CCD and I used that to capture the image data, a series of images.
Then this awesome program called Registax and it takes the series of images, find the part you want, aligns them all and then stacks them into a better looking composite.

For example, the images of Saturn are all made by combining a series of 50 1 second images into a single image.

Now for the most incredible part - these programs are free to download!



This was first attempt


Second attempt with 2x lens used


Third try, images size double via software, squint and it looks a little better

I used a Phillips Toucam model 675 that I got off Ebay for a reasonable price. Technically, this camera has a CCD and typical webcams have a CMOS chip, and CCD are more light sensistive, so this model is popular with the telescope crowd.

The hack, I just unscrew the lens you se (red thing on front) and superglued the base of a eyepiece so it would sit on the eyepiece holder, hopefully its true parallel.

More test to come in the future.

Same telescope a shown in Orion Nebula (M42) images story posted a few days ago, the little Meade Etx60, under $300 from Walmart.