Re: Webcams, old computers & Guide

gcne67 Feb 3, 2002

--- In guide-user@y..., Bill J Gray <pluto@p...> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> (Those wondering why we're talking about video cameras may
> want to read this: http://www.projectpluto.com/webcam.htm ,
> discussing a wild-eyed idea I had about a year ago to make
> encoders obsolete by putting a camera alongside a telescope,
> so that a computer could "see" where the telescope was pointed.
> At the time, I had to shelve the idea for lack of a suitable camera.)

Not so wild, brilliant. Just ahead of it's time (by about 1 year). Give it another go around. The noteriety would would be worth it alone. And it's going to work with any telescope on any type of mount (altaz or eq) - while costing far less than DSCs ($50 for an old camera lens+$130 for camera+$50 for a USB video dongle = $230 -- that's a steal).

> This sounds quite astonishing. I've not been able to check it
> out yet, since Yahoogroups is giving me some grief about
> attempting to sign in... but I've heard a bit from some occultation
> folks about this, and it does appear that it may be just the
> ticket to get my "crazy idea" to work.

I think so. At in an 8" at with a focal reducer they're getting down to mag 11 or so in 1/60th of second. With a tiny security camer lens it's going down to mag 3.5 in a moon lit sky. I think the possibilities are endless for your application with anything from a 50mm camera lens upto an 80mm short focus refractor. Also with a camera lens, if it's going too deep (isn't that a nice problem to have for a change) you can just shut the iris down a few stops!!

> (Especially since I'd
> be perfectly happy to take a slew of frames and average them.)

Put a post over there, I'm sure this fellow who's using the 50mm f1.4 lens would be happy to send you a few images. Here's the link to his post:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/QCUIAG/message/14604