QuickCam on the Questar
Here are the results of some experiments in "quick-and-dirty"
astrophotography using a greyscale Connectix QuickCam and a
Questar 3.5.
Prime Focus
In this setup, I removed the guts from my old grayscale QuickCam following
some
instructions for disassembling a QuickCam by Hanno Müler (note -
this is not for the faint-of-heart and WILL void your warranty). After
remounting the electronics in a small project box and removing the lens to
expose the CCD, it was easy to attach the assembly to my Questar to work at
prime focus. The approximate plate scale is 2 arc seconds per pixel, or a
useful field of 11 x 8.3 arc minutes, for a Questar 3.5.
For starters, here are two shots of a $1 bill, taken with the above setup
from about 15 feet away.
Jupiter...10/09/1998 4:30 UT
Jupiter was snapped prime-focus. The images below are averages of several
different frames.
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| 
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| prime focus
| with 2x barlow
| Moons (composite)
long exposure for moons
and short for Jupiter
From left: Ganymede, Io, Europa (Callisto off-frame)
|
Now, to the Moon!
Here are some exposures of the Moon.
I've undone the mirror-reflection induced by the Questar, and put
south at the top.
 |
 |
| Here's a spotty mosaic; click
here for a larger version. Obtained with the above setup on June 16 1997
Highlight frames appear below.
| Here's another mosaic from July 11, 1997; click
here for a larger version.
|
Southern region
Moving down the terminator
Continuing down
and down...
Some lightly processed views:
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| Tycho before
| Tycho after contrast enhancement
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|
|  |
| Southernmost region before
| Southernmost region after contrast enhancement
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Simple afocal arrangement
The setup couldn't be simpler; I simply held the unadulterated QuickCam
against the eyepice of the telescope with one hand, and used the other hand
to control the computer. The setup could have been less awkward, though.
Alignment of the camera with the telescope needs to be pretty precise to
see much of anything. A simpler method would be to tape the QuickCam to
the eyepiece, I suppose.
The QuickCam captures 16 level grayscale images; I've processed these images a
bit to enhance contrast.
 |
Waxing gibbous, 80X eyepiece.
Late April, 1996 |
Waxing gibbous, southern region, 80X and 1.6X barlow.
Late April, 1996 |
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Waxing crescent, 80X and 1.6X barlow. |
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