Anyone else for webcam imaging?

Hello All, Reading the Dec.03 pg94 issue of Astronomy (US), I've come across an Astrophotography article about imaging deep sky objects with simple and modified webcams through the telescope. This site below really is a help that was mentioned in the article..there is even an e-mail list to help with all your problems, advice etc. What do you think?

www.qcuiag.co.uk/

Michael & Dave & anyone else - I'm sure you're interested??
Keith

Very knowledgeable group of people there who are really into their webcam stuff. However, for beginners like us starting out it can be alot of info thrown at you. The webcams they tend to use are mainly modified versions which allow long exposure imagery. However, to do this requires a bit of soldering and knowledge of electronic circuits which I'm totally ignorant of unfortunately. However you can buy modified versions from here:
www.sac-imaging.com/
The SAC 8 looks like a good camera to get and as you can see the results are really impressive. Personally though, if you want to image DSOs at a relatively low cost then it might be a better to invest a few more quid in a Canon EOS 300D (also known as the EOS Rebel in the US). The size, sensitivity and low noise ratio of the chip in this camera make it second to none.
Michael

Sounds good to me, BTW, has anyone used the new TouCam Pro 2, I saw a few in PC world today and wonder is it worth getting also.
It does mention it has a very sensitive chip in it, but its 640X480, is it really the same thing re-packaged???

I've got the original one and will give it a good run in the next six months and will then probabily modify it for deep sky, an easy job, I hope.

Dave,

The "new" ToUCam is precisely the same as the previous version. The only difference is the housing. All of the electronics are 100% identical.

Anthony.

I think the best webcam or rather modified webcam to get now is the Meade LPI
It is essentially a webcam that lets you take up to 16 sec frames and has some pretty good software included in the $140 price.
The sw is a planetarium, image processing and camera driver.

There is a yahoo group especially for this camera>
groups.yahoo.com/group/autostarsuite/

I have both the Toucam and the LPI but used the toucam exclusievly as webcam since I have the LPI.

Jouke

Sounds good to me, BTW, has anyone used the new TouCam Pro 2, I saw a few in PC world today and wonder is it worth getting also.
It does mention it has a very sensitive chip in it, but its 640X480, is it really the same thing re-packaged???

I've got the original one and will give it a good run in the next six months and will then probabily modify it for deep sky, an easy job, I hope.

Hi,
Thats fine for all yee GPS people out there, we old model LX200 folk can't use the LPI camera, ahwell, I'll just have to make do.

P.S. a pity the the toucam pro2 is the same camera.