אם אין אני לי - מי לי? (Translation inside)

[Avraham]

The headline freely translates to: I can only rely on myself.

This a blathering post - you do not have to read this! :-)


But if you do, that's cool. Since I joined SolarChat and got involved a bit with Steven, I really took an interest in solar astronomy. This was a new field for me, even though I'm in amateur astronomy for over 15 years. The material here is well sorted and easy to access, and that invited me to browse the forum. At the Tutorial section I found the threads on Autostakkert. I read some posts, went to the websites, emailed the guy (I don't think he replied though....), and started to wish I had a good camera to image the sun (also, after I saw what you guys are doing :-). My wish was to show the kids in my classrooms how simple it is to image the sun and get nice pictures. This would position them a step next to doing real science.


But prices for the good cams are horrendous.


So I found this website which instruct you how to modify webcams for astrophotography. I took the risk, got a good one (about 55USD) and took it apart, got a metal housing for it, etched it properly so everything fits, and there you go. All this took about 30-35 hours of work (including finding people who do these things).

But there's no GAIN setting on this thing. This is a dumb camera. made dumber for the (dumb?) public. gosh. Another 5 hours of research to circumnavigate around that.

Now - experiments (finally). My ETX has busted tracking, so that's no good. Our observatory has good scopes that track, but no filters. We have a PST but that has no tracking. So I went to get some cardboard, tried to make a filter, ruined it. I piggy-backed the PST to an LX200 - no cam focus whatsoever. And it's hot, cause it's all out in the sun. btw, we carry the LX200 outside for each use. It's a 12". We have a domed 16" but it's fragile sometimes so I'd rater not having him die on a personal experiment.

Night experiments (through a friend's scope) with the cam proved awesome capabilities. This was a good mod.

Now all that's left to do is fix the tracking on my ETX, get a proper filter for the obs scopes, and get this F-ing summer clouds away.

I'm waiting for a part for the ETX for 2 months now to come from overseas. yesterday I went to the guy that etches in metal to do it myself. I'll finish it in the next few days.

So I made my camera, I'm fixing my scope, I'm preparing my filters (through trial and error :-) ). It's becoming a challenging project but definitely something to recreate with students, once it's done. Plus I'm experiencing many things and new horizons open. The world of modifications is great, and I'm sure t gets easier with time.

The things is - I wouldn't be there without this forum prolly.


That's it for now.

:-)

[colinsk]

I like reading right to left!

[sullij1]

your in the right place. Welcome and have fun with it!

[Avraham]

Here's a pic of the camera and the safety camouflage case.

Attached files

[swisswalter]

[marktownley]

I hear what you're saying