Webcam Astrophotography, First Attempt
September 11th, 2009
I’ve been meaning to give this a go for a while, but the lure of deep sky has kept me from it so far. Unfortunately however, I broke the starbook controller for my mount last weekend and it’s away for repairs, and with out that the mount won’t do anything useful at all.
Still, looking at it as an opportunity to try something new, and understanding that in webcam astrophotography only short exposures are required, I decided to see what I could do with Jupiter.
Not bad for a first attempt really, you can at least tell what it is! This is Jupiter compiled from about three and a half minutes of video captured my my Philips SPC900NC webcam and stacking in registax 5.
To improve the image I’m going to need to zoom it in a bit more, which means a barlow, which I have. But will also require an IR filter as passing light through a lens causes the infra red light to scatter, making focus very nearly impossible to reach. So that’s the next item on the shopping list.
