I noticed today that Philips have released a new range of webcams, and there are a couple of Pro models. The main one to look at is the SPC1300 or SPC1330 as it’s called on the Philips web site. The SPC1300 is said to be a 2 Megapixel webcam, unlike the SPC900 which is a 1.3 Megapixel camera.
The major downside of the new SPC1300 is that the sensor is a CMOS sensor where as the SPC900 is a CCD sensor. But will this make a lot of difference when undertaking astrophotography?
Is the SPC1300 the new SPC900? Can the SPC1300 be taken apart and the lens removed and a standard plastic lens adaptor be screwed in? I suppose the only way to find out is to purchase one and try and take it apart.
The cheapest place to buy from seems to be Amazon or Pixmania for around £50.
The weight of the webcam is only 110g and the fixed lens is f/2.8
If anybody has more information on this, or has one and has adapted it, I would love to know about it, so please leave some comments about it.
My first DSLR purchase was a Canon 400D, which I purchased in July 2007, so about 14 months ago. A great camera and the only reason I bought it was to use it for astronomy. But once I heard about the new 450D being released, I thought why not upgrade? Well I left it a while then after hearing a talk be Nik Symanchek I decided to go for it.
I ended up selling my 400D camera on Amazon and then purchased my new Canon 450D from Dixons, for £446 which luckily included a £50 cashback offer from Canon as well as free delivery at the time.
The main reason for the upgrade was the Live View mode, my main problem with doing astrophotography for me was getting the object in focus in the small cameras viewfinder. I did invest in a right angled viewfinder with 2x magnification, but even that was not that easy to use, but it did help.
There is not a great deal of difference cosmetically between the cameras. The menus and layout of the camera are very similar. If you already have a 350d or 400d then you will find using the 450d really easy.
The new 450D is lighter than the 400D, it also has a nice feel to the grip now, with a kind of mottled effect. The 450D now comes with a Image Stabilised lens (IS) which is a nice touch.
On the back of the 450D are the biggest changes, with the buttons moved around in order to accommodate the new slightly larger 3 inch screen.
The Canon battery type has changed and the Compact Flash card slot has been replaced with an SD card, which is useful, as it seems most cameras have now gone back to SD cards, as my HD camcorder also takes SD cards.
The 450D now has 12 mega-pixels instead of the 10 mega-pixels in the 400D.
The Live View mode works in all modes except in Automatic mode, so don’t expect to use the live view just like a compact digital camera. After pressing the “Set” button to enter Live View mode you can zoom in on the object by 5x or 10x magnification, which should help with focusing whilst doing astrophotography. I think you can also get a live view through a PC or laptop, even more useful.
The standard ISO settings are still there. I would have thought we would have seen an ISO setting of 3200 available, but maybe that will be on the next model, 500D? I also think the next model will have 15 megapixels and probably an HD video recording facility. But we will have to wait and see.
Overall the 450D seems worth upgrading to if you really think you need an extra 2 megapixels or the live view mode, otherwise stick with the 400D if you have it. If you don’t have a DSLR then the Canon 450D is a great camera and worth a purchase.
The best price for the Canon 450D Digital SLR Camera seemed to be from either Dixons or Amazon when I was looking.
I have at last purchased a new digital high definition camcorder. I chose the Panasonic SD9 HD camcorder for it’s size, weight and functionality as well as price. I purchased it through Amazon and got a free 8GB SDHC card with it.
Once it arrived I was amazed by the small size of it and how light it was, especially compared to my 1st 8mm camcorder I bought 15 years ago which is now out of service.
This now means I have another option for recording astronomy, not just my webcam, Meade DSI Pro or Canon DLSR. The first thing I need to figure out is how to attach the SD9 camcorder to my telescope. I am hoping to find a simple 37mm threaded adaptor which will fit directly onto the front of the camcorder which will allow me to connect the other end as 1.25″ or 2″ eyepiece.
The manual mode of the camcorder does allow you to change the shutter times from 1/25 to 1/8000. This was useful for those night shots, especially when shooting the footage below that I took of the moon, which I took using a 1/4000 shutter speed via a tripod on full zoom which is 10x. You can also change the apeture setting as well. (From viewing these videos you will see that the viewing ratio has changed in YouTube as the moon looks a bit elongated, plus note you will not really see the HD quality on these videos).
There is a larger zoom than 10x, but this is digital and you lose quality and gain pixelisation when using digital zoom, so it’s not recommended to use it, and a good thing is that in the menu you can actually turn off the use of the digital zoom.
Viewing the files recorded in the AVCHD format is tricky, Windows Media Player will play the files but you may need to install special codec onto the PC to get it to work. Each file is located in a folder called “stream” as an .MTS file.
There is a supplied CD which allows you to first download the video footage to your PC and then edit it via an included program, which can output your video as MPEG2. Though as you have probably seen from the YouTube videos that the ratio is different as YouTube has squashed the videos.
The quality of the recordings are very good, the picture is clear and the sound good, but at the moment I don’t have an HD TV though, so I am probably not getting the best from the camcorder.
There are other accessories to buy though such as macro lenses, so I have an idea of using the camcorder with a macro lens on and to record meteor showers by leaving the camcorder on a tripod and recording for 2hrs at a time, so then I should hopefully then get some footage of some meteors.
So far I can thoroughly recommend the Panasonic SD9 camcorder, the only downside at the moment is that spare batteries are hard to find and expensive.
I purchased my Panasonic SD9 from Amazon, which I think was the cheapest although, it can be purchased from other online electrical retailers such as Currys and John Lewis.
I managed to sell my Meade DSI Pro I on eBay, I then purchased a Meade DSI Pro II from Telescope House over the final May Bank Holiday weekend when they gave me an extra 10% off the retail price. Though I thought the price for the DSI Pro II was already a good price at £299, in fact the best I could find on the net.
I would have loved to have purchased a DSI Pro III, but there was no way I was going to spend £600 on a Deep Sky Imager, that’s the price of a new laptop, maybe in the future the price will come down and I may upgrade.
Anyway I have used the new Pro II version a couple of times and I can tell that it is slightly better than the first version, obviously there are more pixels that can be captured.
I was amazed to find out that there was no Autostar CD in the box, there was only an instructional DVD, which is the same as on the Meade website. My first version did come with an Autostar CD, but maybe now they just expect you to download the latest version.
This is exactly what I did, as my original DSI came with something like Autostar v3, and I am now running something like v5. One of the main differences to the DSI software is that it now contained a field telling me the temperature of the CCD.
Now I think I have too much choice of what to use to image, do I use the DSI, Canon DSLR or Webcam? I am also thinking of purchasing a High Definition Camcorder to video our new child, but I’m sure I’ll want to somehow attach the camcorder to the telescope as well.
I have never owned my own pair of binoculars before, even though it seems that as an amateur astronomer having a pair of binoculars is a must.
The binoculars being reviewed are from Telescope Planet and they are their own make, and are 15×70 (15x zoom with a 70mm lens diameter). They have a nice feel to them as they have a rubberised coating, which I am told is good for grip and reduces the formation of dew.
These binoculars are good for all types of viewing but really excel at astronomy, due to their 15x magnification and 70mm lens. It’s strange to think that even some telescopes have this size lens diameter.
The binoculars come in their own soft case and come with a binocular strap and cleaning cloth, as well as all eyepiece covers.
These 15×70 binoculars are not light, and I did find myself only being able to hold them for a few minutes before my arms got tired and I started to view star trails with my arms shaking. I found the best way to hold these long binoculars was by holding the end of the binoculars with both hands, instead of up near the eyepiece and focuser.
The good thing is that they have a standard Universal Bush built into them beneath a protective screw on cover. I would thoroughly recommend purchasing a binocular L bracket (around £10) and putting them on a tripod to get the most out of these, perhaps something I should look at purchasing next.
I could then imagine myself just sitting in the garden on a chair with the binoculars on my tripod gazing up at the stars all night long when I did not want to setup my LX200 outdoors.
The binoculars come with a standard dioptre adjustment, and they allow you to change the distance between the eyepieces to match your pupil distance.
The focus adjuster was quite stiff and did appear to spring back a little, but it did keep focus and with a bit more use it should become easier to use.
Views of the moon were brilliant with a very fine crisp detail being provided of the lunar surface. I also managed to track satellites in the sky with these binoculars and I even managed to witness a shooting star through them, something that was not visible with the naked eye.
Overall, a very nice pair of binoculars with good magnification and viewing, and some really crisp views of the nights sky. They also have long eye relief (77m at 1,000m or 231ft at 1,000yds)
The only disadvantage is that they are a little heavy to hold, but these would excel when mounted on a tripod using an L type bracket.
UPDATE
I have now managed to get a large L-Type adaptor and have easily added these binoculars to a tripod and even though it is difficult to describe what you can see with them, here is an image of the Moon, taken with a Canon 400D SLR camera pointed through one of the binocular eyepieces.
I also managed to see Jupiter again in Summer 2008 using them, and amazingly enough they allowed me to see the disc of the planet and make out Jupiter’s Moons as stars.
I saw from my web logs that a few people have been finding my site whilst looking for a power supply for their telescope, and I have no main information on that, so I am adding some.
When I purchased my LX200 I did not purchase the official Meade power supply, but instead used a power supply which I already had.
For anybody that is looking for a general purpose (PSU) Power Supply Unit for their telescope then I can recommend this PSU currently being sold at Maplin, by the way mine is very similar to this one below which also came from Maplin and works really well.
This PSU comes with 8 popular power supply tips and the benefits of this is that it also has attachments making it usable abroad, in case you take your telescope on holiday!
“The lead connecting the power supply to your appliance is 1.6 metres in length and mains cable from the power supply 1.7m. The mains cable is terminated in a moulded-on 2-pin European mains plug which can be fitted with any of the UK, USA and Australasian supplied mains plugs.
Dimensions: 133mm (L) x 68mm (W) x 37mm (H)
The high output current together with the range of popular power tips supplied means this power supply is suited to a multitude of uses. The power tips can be inserted either way around to provide a centre-positive or centre-negative polarity. Specifications:Input voltage:100-240Va”
Last week I was lucky enough to be able to borrow some binoviewers for a weeks use, from James at ScopesNSkies. I was very dubious that a pair of binoviewers could really give me a better view or increased viewing pleasure.
The binoviewers are just like a pair of binoculars that can be attached to the telescope. The main advantage of buying and using a binoviewer is that you can keep both eyes open whilst viewing and it seems as if we are more used to using binoculars than we are at viewing with just one eye.
The major disadvantage of the binoviewers is that you will have to buy two of every eyepiece, so increasing your costs.
On the other hand I can also see that the binoviewers are a brilliant idea if you have group observing sessions, such as when you want to have your family around to have a night observing with them, as I know the viewing will be greatly enhanced by the binoviewers as I am sure most people have used binoculars before and are used to using them.
The eyepieces are held in place by a really nice half turn fixing, and the binoviewers are really well made and also quite heavy, I did find that the heavy weight was sometimes a problem when trying to secure the binoviewers into the diagonal when I wanted a really nice angular viewing angle.
The binoviewers took a while to get used to, as I was under the impression that you could put an eyepiece in and use it to get focus then take out the eyepiece and put it with your other matching eyepiece into the binoviewer and keep focus, but you can’t as the focus point has then changed.
After a while of getting used to them I was amazed at how much extra you could see, or you thought you were seeing! Your field of view is very large when using the binoviewer as you are now using two eyes. The binoviewers are also very comfortable to use with some nice eye relief provided by your eyepieces.
The thing I was most impressed with was that I actually felt that what I was seeing was actually kind of 3D instead of a flat field kind of view you get with a single eyepiece. You do actually become more immersed into what you are looking at as well.
The binoviewers cost around £120, so are not a cheap purchase, although they do come with a set of eyepieces included. I think they are a bit of an extravagance but something that you may find will give you pleasing and improved viewing sessions.
The Bresser Messier N130 or 130N is a 5” or as the name implies a 130mm aperture Newtonian Telescope with a focal length of 1000mm/100cm/1m.
The Bresser Messier 130N was my first telescope purchase, and I was glad to know that it came complete with a number of eyepieces – 25mm, 15mm, 10mm and a Barlow lens, a planisphere, a good manual, as well as the astronomy software Cartes Du Ciel which can also be downloaded for free on the internet.
I paid £190 for the telescope new. At the time I only wanted to pay a maximum of £250 for a telescope, so it was nice to have some money spare, although this money and more was subsequently spent on astronomy accessories.
There were two largish boxes to unpack; one contained the tripod and equatorial mount whilst the other box contained the scope and the accessories. It did not take me too long to unpack and setup the telescope, although reading the manual was necessary.
As soon as I unpacked the telescope I was amazed that the equatorial telescope mount was so well made and very sturdy for the amount I paid. You may find the tripod quite heavy especially when you add the balancing weights to the tripod, so the 130N scope is not for young children due to the weight. The tripod height can be altered by loosening the tripod locks on the legs in order to get the telescope to a comfortable height for viewing. The tripod base underneath also has a plastic triangle to lock the legs in place, this also doubles up as an accessory tray, which can hold three 1.25 inch eyepieces and other bits and bobs.
When it’s your first telescope you never know what to expect when it comes to what you are going to see. I began by using the scope to see trees and plants outside of the window, and I was amazed to find out that I could see magnified images of ants on trees which were about 30m away.
Using the telescope indoors also gets you used to using the scope and how the equatorial mount works and how to get the scope in focus etc.
The 130N moves across the RA and Dec axis via manual control, although an optional RA motor drive can be fitted to the MON1 mount in order to track objects.
One good thing about the 130N is that you can remove or unscrew the barrel part of the eyepiece focuser on the telescope, which provides you with even more focusing range when doing imaging with the scope.
I have used the 130N many times for taking images of the moon (see my gallery to view the images) and this telescope excelled at viewing the moon as well as planets such as Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. I also managed to use a web cam to get some great images of Jupiter, unfortunately due to the time of year when I owned the telescope; Saturn and Venus were not available for imaging.
I was also able to view other objects such as the Ring Nebula, Hercules cluster, Andromeda Galaxy and Whirlpool galaxy. But don’t expect to get views such as those from the Hubble Space Telescope for £200, but you can see a whole lot of sky if you can find the objects. Astrophotography of certain fast moving deep sky objects will be very difficult with this scope but viewing them will not.
Moving and setting up the Messier 130N telescope was relatively easy with most of the weight being in the tripod mount, it was then just a matter of setting the tripod height and then placing the telescope tube onto the mount and tightening it onto the mount via a screw and you are ready.
After a while I got used to polar aligning the scope as directed in the user manual and then finding objects by using the RA and Dec settings.
Really I don’t know what else to say about the scope, other than for the price the telescope was very good value for money, and I can definitely recommend the Bresser Messier 130N as a starter scope.
For a long time Philips web cams have been the defacto standard of web cams to use for CCD imaging of astronomy objects. Many people own or have used a Philips ToUcam web cam, the latest version of this is the Philips SPC900NC web cam.
I originally already owned a Logitech Quickcam Pro4000 so I decided to start to use this webcam and purchased a web cam adaptor for it, luckily this webcam adaptor also fits the SPC900. The Adaptor I purchased was a AC414n nose-piece. I also purchased an IR filter.
After reading a lot of information about the Philips web cam and because it was only around £45, I decided to purchase one, and try it out.
I was very happy with the Quickcam Pro4000 images of the moon, but curiosity got to me, how much better could the Philips SPC900 really be? The Logitech Quickcam was not so good when used with a barlow or an imageMate when trying to look at far off planets, so I was hoping that the Philips web cam would be a lot better.
There are modifications you can make to the webcams, but I have not modded either of them.
Philips SPC9000NC
The Philips was used together with its bundled VLounge software, and this software did introduce me to a lot of available settings such as gamma, saturation, brightness, shutter speed, contrast etc which just were not available with the Quickcam.
The Philips does seem to be a pain when it comes to starting up sometimes on the laptop, sometimes I find myself pulling out the USB cable and re-inserting it or closing down VLounge and re-starting it.
I also find that the Frames Per Second (fps) setting in VLounge seems to change on it’s own, back to 5fps, but I usually try to image at a higher fps.
The bundled software with the Quickcam is very similar to VLounge, but there are less settings to tweak with this software and web cam, only
I never have any problems in plugging in the Quickcam into the laptop, I just plug it in insert it into the eyepiece setion of the telescope and away I go, completely trouble free.
The two videos below have each been taken with the Philips and the Quickcam, to try and demonstrate the differences with the web cams. Both videos were taken within about 10minutes of each other, on basic web cam settings.
I shall try and add extra videos and stacked images from both web cams of other items in the solar system at a later date.
Philips Moon Video
This video shows a dark patch on the right, which is a house roof coming into view as the moon dipped beneath it, but the overall video is a lot darker, but I think the resolution is a lot better.
Quickcam Moon Video
I think you can see from this video that the moon was quite low, hence the astmospheric ripples, like the moon is underwater. But I was happy with the focus, detail and the brightness of the video from the Quickcam.
Overall
I think the Philips SPC900 is definitely the better webcam when it comes to functionality, there are more settings to play with and you can get better resolution and record what appears to be a darker output of the sky with it.
If you already have a Logitech Quickcam Pro 3000, 4000 or 5000 then use it and have a go. If you don’t have a webcam at all then buy the Philips SPC900, I purchased mine in the UK from Pixmania (whose stock comes from France) or they are available at time of writing from Amazon.
I noticed today that Philips have released a new range of webcams, and there are a couple of Pro models. The main one to look at is the SPC1300 or SPC1330 as it’s called on the Philips web site. The SPC1300 is said to be a 2 Megapixel webcam, unlike the SPC900 which is a 1.3 Megapixel camera.
The cheapest place to buy from seems to be Amazon or Pixmania for around £50.
