Xbox Live webcam massacre

Had to do something to keep myself amused since there's been no clear sky since Saturday last week.  :(

Decided it was time to butcher the Xbox Live webcam since apparently removing the IR filter gives better viewing in the dark. Using a post on Stargazers Lounge (http://stargazerslounge.com/diy-astronomer/170747-xbox-livecam-mod-cliff.html) and a blog post on Astro-Beano (http://astrobeano.blogspot.com/2012/01/xbox-360-webcam-ir-filter.html) I was able to successfully operate, and the patient actually survived! Hoorah!  \o/

So... now I need to wait for some clear skies. Again!  *sigh*

Although, let this be a lesson to anyone thinking of buying a whopping great telescope worth hundreds, you could get it and with bad luck it'll sit doing nothing 90% of the time!  :(

Jupiter and Pleiades

First clear sky in about three nights. Time to test the Xbox Live Cam.

Most folks on the SGL Forum are butchering their cameras to (purposely!) break the green LED's inside then gluing a piece of pipe to the cam so that it can be inserted into the eyepiece of the scope. I'm going the less destructive route first. For a change. I'm keeping it intact and using some blu-tac to put a piece of pipe around the cam. I'm also keeping the adjustable lens in it. Basically if, after a while, I can't get anything good out of it then I'll butcher it to hell.  :)

Jupiter looked awesome tonight. The bands of colour were just visible, but the four moons stood out really well! Hopefully a couple of Xbox Cam videos will produce some sort of image I can post.

One image I can post if of a star cluster I found by accident. Pleiades!

Was scanning the sky after looking at Jupiter and came across a big group of stars. Took a while to get my head around their placement (remember: everything in the scope is flipped horizontally and vertically!) but using Kstars (on my old laptop) I managed to place the stars as Pleiades (NGC 1432). The photo was taken using my digital camera held to the 25mm eyepiece with a high ISO (800, I think).

Anyway, time to process those videos of Jupiter...

Ah, Doctor Frankenstein

Got my £6 Xbox Live Cam today.

Will hopefully get a bit of plastic pipe for it tomorrow and spend Thursday night butchering the little blighter.

The idea (according to this post on the SGL Forum) is to remove the internal LED's (which apparently increase the video noise level), remove the lens focuser and, last but not least, bolt on the piece of tubing to let me insert the cam into the scope instead of an eye piece. How good it'll be for photos when there's no eyepiece, I've no idea. Soon find out tomorrow though.

Worst comes to the worst: I lob the piece of pipe off, and rig the cam to the eyepiece holder or something.

Nurse, scalpel...

Sunshine, my only sunshine...

Before leaving for work today I just had to point the telescope at the sun and blind myself project it's image onto a sheet of paper to photograph. If you look reeeeeeally closely you'll see a couple of sun spots:

If I ever get sunshine again I'll try again, but with a better set up.

Jupiter and Mars

Finally! Some clear sky!  \o/

I was asked by someone on the Stargazers Lounge if I could see the banding on Jupiter. I armed myself with my scope and lenses and set to work. With the 25mm lens Jupiter was a little white blob. With the 10mm it was a slightly large, but fuzzy, white blob. Only when I added the 2X Barlow to the 10mm did I see anything. And even then... only just! It does take a wee while for your eyes to adjust to seeing things in the scope as you instinctively try and focus on the planet which doesn't help any. You need to look in the eyepiece and let your eye relax and, if possible, focus far off rather than close up. Well, I did manage to see the bands on Jupiter but they were very faint.

Not so much luck with Mars. Even at 10mm 2X Barlow it's still a red-tinted dot. But it's still awesome to see it.

While just browsing stars I saw a white dot, which looked like a star, whiz across the sky. I couldn't see it with the naked eye, only through the scope. I followed it for a bit then lost it. But, having looked at a forum members video of a meteor, I'm convinced that's exactly what I saw! Totally fluked it, and saw a meteor. Well chuffed!

Review and a purchase

If you're wondering what I think of the Skywatcher Heritage 130P thus far then you can check out my review of it here: http://stargazerslounge.com/member-equipment-reviews/175621-skywatcher-heritage-130p.html

In short: well chuffed.

I've also just bought a £6 Xbox Live webcam. Apparently these cams can be easily modified for use with telescopes and work pretty well considering their cheapness. Will report back on that when I get it.

*taps fingers* just need the clouds to bugger off now...

Damn you weather!

Just when I'm getting my bearings.

I've got the telescope, I've got a plan of action (webcam and Registax) and getting to know my way about the night sky - and what happens? Clouds. Lots of them.

Last night and tonight were completely covered in cloud. Not even the moon made an appearance!

Not impressed.

Registax - it's hard!

OK, it seems like I'll have to use Registax 6 via Wine. The only other alternative that seems up to the task is AstroStack and while it is a 'native' Linux app it's only because it's written in Java. Either way, both apps are pretty difficult to use.

What I've managed to do is (using cardboard and blu-tac) hold my Logitech HD webcam to the eyepiece of the telescope and record a short video. Also took a couple of stills using the webcam:

Only problem is that my slow old laptop has difficultly recording a full HD video, so I might have to bring the recording resolution down to about 640x480.

Oh, and here's one with my phone:

I can see that it's going to take a lot of tinkering to get Registax to give good results as apparently it needs hundreds of video frames to stack to give a good output image.

Moon, Webcam and Laptop, oh my!

I've been reading alot in the Stargazers Lounge forum (http://stargazerslounge.com/) about using some software to stack images (or frames from videos) to get more detailed pictures, so I'm going to give that a go. Only (good) thing is: I don't use Windows. I'm a Kubuntu Linux kinda guy. So I'm going to have to find some Linux astronomy software. Shouldn't be too difficult. Worst comes to the worst I can get Registax 6 running in Linux via Wine.

Full Moooooooonnn!

I only managed to get one photo of my new friend, the Moon. I really need to start looking at other things too...

There's a full moon a-comin'!

Should be a full moon within a couple of days. Hope there'll be a good clear sky for it.

In the mean time, another couple of mobile phone not-quite-full Moon photos:

More Moon Photos!

These came out quite good too.*

* disclaimer: I admit to having corrected these and the previous photos as it wasn't until later that I realised that when looking through the 'scope you're seeing things upside down. I did wonder if man-kind was on the way out when I noticed the South Pole of the Moon at the North...

Astro-Photography!

Having looked at the moon (obviously) I decided to give astrophotography a go.

Not as easy as it seems.

First I tried my 12MP digital camera as that would probably get me the highest resolution pictures. No dice. The camera has a wide field of view, so all I see in the viewfinder is a very blurry moon which is a small white fuzzy blob surrounded by a black circle which is the inside of the eyepiece/lens. Bah!

Mobile phone to the rescue! These photos were taken by holding my phone (Sony Xperia PLAY) to the eyepiece and trying not to breathe for fear of moving it. Either way. I'm damn proud of my first attempts!

It's finally here!

Even though I paid for 48hr delivery Scopes 'n' Skies were keeping tight lipped about not being able to do 48hr delivery. Only after I called them up about it being a bit late did they admit to the 'stock error' on their website and refund my 48hr postage cost. Anyway... it's here!

Upon ripping open the large square box I was presented with the sight of 'the beast':

Flicked through the manual (briefly) and extended it to it's full size:

With it came a 10mm, and a 25mm lens. Also, a 2X magnification Barlow lens.

This is the 10mm lens (that I'm holding) with the 2X Barlow beside it:

This is the 10mm lens in the Barlow:

And here's the 25mm lens:

God I hope there's a clear sky tonight!