Toucam dead.. any good replacement?

[shahgazer]

ASW dan salam sejahtera.

After years of contribution, my Philps Toucam camera appears dead... intermittent connection, no signal, no support for Win 7 bla bla bla...

So now looking for replacement. Any ideas?

One thing I like about Toucam is the lens housing which we can unscrew and attache the 1.25" adapter. I wonder if any other commercial webcam can do that? I want to use it for video chatting as well la... 

ps: mana pergi semua orang? huhuhu

[mymoon]

Try celestron neximage which use the same CCD chip but fully modified for webcam astroimaging. Can still be bought from amazon. Comes with driver and celestron website updates for win7.

Or buy the new HD webcams and modify to suit. The adapters from your toucam can be reused.  Click here

Alternative is to use the video from Canon 550D. The crop video gives a 7x crop factor equivalent to adding a 7X Barlow.

I recall saudara Redzuan has one for sale.

For Skype any cheap or HD webcam will do.


BTW the sky looks blue for the first time after raya 

Cheers

[shahgazer]

Alternative is to use the video from Canon 550D. The crop video gives a 7x crop factor equivalent to adding a 7X Barlow.

ahhh yes... i overlook 550D video mode. Will give it a try.  Thanks

BTW the sky looks blue for the first time after raya 

Cheers

Blue sky, but thin clouds tonight. Hope by midnight will clear up a bit.

[shahgazer]

Managed to record Jupiter via 550D, using EOS_movieRec, last night.

Very easy to use. I wonder why I bother to struggle getting my toucam working.. 

However, my 900mm scope still produced a wee too small image to have satisfying results. And my 5X barlow... i think the focus is way out and unable to reach.

Need to find my old 2x-3x barlow...mana tah letak dah...   

Tonight berjerebu pulak! 

[mymoon]

Alhamdulillah.

U need one scope for deep space wide angle n one for planets n moon.

Guna lah Vixen tu.

Cheers

[mymoon]

Managed to record Jupiter via 550D, using EOS_movieRec, last night.


However, my 900mm scope still produced a wee too small image to have satisfying results. And my 5X barlow... i think the focus is way out and unable to reach.

Need to find my old 2x-3x barlow...mana tah letak dah...   

take care when using the hack video programme. Your sensor my get heated and get damaged  unlike the inbuilt video capture where the camera will shut down when the sensor get hot.

Use instead the incamera  videocrop mode.

 Set camera to Video.

Ignore the warning "Ensure a lens is attached"

Proceed to press the button to activate movie shooting.

then press menu and set the Movie rec. size to Crop 640X480 at 50fps.

Disable AF  and set  Movie exposure to Manual and set the Sound recording to Off

Attached camera to telescope and focus, adjust exposure and start video shoot.

Your image of Jupiter is increased by 7X.

Then convert the .mov to .avi



Another method is to use the external  programme BackyardEOS .

In the planetary mode you can use the live view using the camera 5X zoom to record short movies to your camera or computer as an .avi file.

Your image size is increased by 5x at HD resolution.

If 2X barlow ada then can try shooting at 14X or 10X.

Wishing that the clear sky will continue till Jupiter is high in the sky tonight. InsyaAllah.


cheers

[mymoon]

Peralatan

Teleskop: Celestron C8- 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain Optical Tube Assembly,  2032mm focal length at f/10

Mount: Tripod jenama Gitzo

Camera: Canon 550D biasa prime focus di C8

Software: BackyardEOS (percuma untuk 30 hari) sila klik kat pos diatas

Target: Langit malam 100% berawan jadi mangsa disiang hari glass curtain wall di bangunan di Jalan Semantan 1 km dari rumah.

Cuaca: berjerebu, mendung.



1. Single shot prime focus 1/30s iso400



Levels adjusted and resized  in Photoshop CS2

2. 200 avi frames, align and stack using  Registax 6



Levels adjusted and stretched  and resized in Photoshop CS2


3. 200 avi frames 5X incamera zoom align and stack using Registax 6



Levels adjusted and stretched and resized in Photoshop CS2


Observation:

Stack image less noisy compared to single shot..

5X image possible without using Barlow

Satu advantage DSLR ialah dapat digunapakai di siang hari untuk latihan.

Now waiting for sky to clear to image Jupiter and Moon.

cheers

Update:

4.  From 7X incamera video crop at 640X480 p. The .mov video file converted to .avi video using eRightSoft SUPER software
select 1072 best frames from 1829 frames and processed in Registax 6
Trim and adjust levels in Photoshop CS2



Not as good as image #3 above. Better to video at 5X at HD and crop.

cheers