Having a decent telescope is a great way to see the night sky. Unfortunately, you will soon find that what you see through the eyepiece doesn't look anything like the colorful pictures of nebula and galaxies you might find in a magazine. If you have a decent size telescope, a dark sky, and a trained eye, you can see some stuff; but to really get anything like you would see in a publication, you need a long exposure camera. The problem with looking into deep space is that the objects are very faint; the only way to capture their detail is to collect the light over a period of time. In the past, film cameras were used, but the digital revolution has taken over this field. Digital cameras used for astrophotography are specialized devices that often cost quite a bit. Lucky for us, there is a way to make such a specialized device with some cheaper equipment that will let you see the light – as long as you don't need studio quality results.
This is a project I did a number of years ago; it may be a bit dated now, but it was a good project that worked. The basics are to modify a particular web camera, and enable it to do long exposure. This modification is not simple, and required some very precise soldering. The modification is meant to work with particular software; but since a number of people have done these mods, a few different brands of software exist – most free for the downloading.
The webcam I used for this was the Phillips Vesta, but there are other web cams this modification will work with. The Phillips cameras are some of the best for this mod due to the Sony CCD, which has good quality characteristics for astronomy. The details are at this website, in the FAQ section which is the hub of a group called QCUIAG (Quick Cam Unconventional Imaging Astronomy Group) – a throw back to the original black and white quick cam used.
The first step in modifying a web cam is to make it fit into a telescope holder; you can make or own, or you can buy one from this website. By putting an adapter on the camera, you can take pictures of planets. The adapter also allows you to do something called stacking, but to get the real benefit you need long exposure.
The person who came up with the long exposure modifications for the Vesta cameras is Steve Chambers, and you can still find the details for his modifications on his website. I don't really want to go into the fine details of which wires to cut and solder and what chips to use, but you can find all that with the links provided.
Check out part 2 of this article
Got a project you've done that you want to share in workbench creations? Add a comment to this entry or contact me frankd20.
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