Nice! And with an undriven Dob, no less. Way better than I've ever been able to do when shooting the Moon using much more expensive equipment. patrick :) On 17 Aug 2010, at 22:11, Troy Davidson wrote:
Ok, I got my usb camera today and had to give it a try.
Here are the images:
2x barlow: http://www.clandaith.com/image_barlow.JPG no barlow: http://www.clandaith.com/image.JPG
I took these with a 8" dobsonian. It was hard to focus since the telescope wasn't tracking. The software that comes with the camera was ok. I am looking for something else that will work better. One of the reasons I want better software is that the included software doesn't stream the video but takes a picture every ~2-5 seconds. So, when focusing, it's hard to do.
Plus, the images aren't as good as I think they can get since the images were taken around 9:30 looking over my neighbors yard. The air was not very stable and even in an eyepiece, the moon was waving a lot.
The ccd chip has a few flaws on it. There are a few strange pixels that show up. But, that's what you get when you buy cheap.
Overall, I think the camera isn't bad. It's not great or even good. It's definitely better than a regular webcam. I'm going to head out to the desert this weekend and give it a better shot.
++++++++++++++++++ Troy Davidson www.istroyworking.com