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Supercooled QuickCam Astromomy

Posted by chrisd on from the pretty-cheap-pictures dept.

flowerp writes "Any serious astronomer would declare you insane if you mounted your off-the-shelf CCD webcam to a telescope in order to watch the skies, but there is a group on the Internet who do just that! They call themselves QCUIAG (QuickCam and Unconventional Imaging Astronomy Group). If you think those are just some crazy nerds, watch their astounding footage of planets and nebulae - and reconsider."

7 comments

  1. Interesting take... by pease1 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Actually, many serious amateur astronomers have played with webcams over the past few years. I played with a Logicom quickcam on a homebuilt 4-inch Reflector a couple years ago. By 2003 I'll have it mounted on a homebuilt 12-inch scope to image Mars.

    I first played with CCD's on telescopes in 1987. It has come along way since then; in fact some early amateur astronomers turned image processing software developers have even contributed serious advances in image processing.

    If you want to hack a really cool system, see how to build your own "Cookbook" cooled CCD camera and the related Cookbook camera website.

  2. Ahhh haaaaa.... by moonboy · · Score: 3, Funny



    Ahhhh....so, supercooling the quickcam is the secret! Stupid me!

    ;-)

    --

    Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
  3. Some nice images there. by Guspaz · · Score: 1

    I particularly like the images of Saturn. Though, I wonder what the images look like raw before they've been post-processed... Regards, Guspaz. PS: Looks like the page's been slashdotted.

  4. too cool by seann · · Score: 1

    This is too cool, I've thought of hooking up my good old SLR to my girlfriends telescope last semister in school, but I never got around to making any mounting brackets.

    --
    I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
  5. sweet... by josepha48 · · Score: 2
    This is pretty sweet. I wonder if they have thought of selling this technology so that the average 'joe' like me could own one without having to destroy his cam.

    I have been wanting a tellescops, but having looked through some of them the images that you get are not always that great. If I could get one of these and could get the images on my computer that would be so sweet.

    A new desktop background every night ;-)

    On anther note. Their pictures of mars looked blue and red and white. Really unique pictures.

    --

    Only 'flamers' flame!

  6. Now if they could only up the... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...megapixelage, then they could get some great pictures. They might have to shell out a couple thousand to dedicate a 7~ megapixel ccd camera (you wouldn't want to use something with stalagtites for family photos) but the photo quality would be only a couple times worse than the big observatories.

  7. Cooling. CCD vs CMOS. Consumer digital cameras by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    There are hundreds (if not thousands) of people using webcams & cheap security cameras for backyard astronomy and getting good results, but the special thing about these guys is that they are cooling theirs!

    By cooling the CCD you reduce the background "noise" the CCD picks-up and less noise means a sharper image.

    CMOS webcams, though they suffer problems in low light can also be pressed in to service on a telescope; they do quite a good job for shots of the moon!

    Good sharp photos can also be obtained of the moon and bright planets just by holding a consumer digital camera to the eyepiece of a telescope!