HOW TO REMOTE CONTROL YOUR TELESCOPE – Part 3

The neximage webcam arrives

shortly before i received the right angle finder i also got the neximage webcam i had ordered on ebay. It came in the original Celestron box and seems to be brand new. It came with a one page quick start instruction “manual” as well as a CD with a detailed manual and the Registax stacking software and a webcam capturing software.

 
I quickly installed the Registax software, the capturing software and was able to get an image from the camera. So i guess everything is working ok. I’ll probably spend the next couple of evenings reading through the rather hefty Registax manual.
 
The version of Registax on the CD seems to be an older one. Registax is at Version 5 right now and this version is freely available for download.
 
Here’s a picture of the webcam:

If you look closely you can see the image sensor at the “bottom” inside of the camera. (there’s a protective cap that goes over the opening, which i removed for the picture)   Now i just have to wait for better weather to take some first shots of Mars : )

5 Comments

    • Gustavo – No, so far i only installed the software from the CD. I got the latest version of Registaxx though. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll try it the next time i have some time to play with my dedicated “astronomy laptop” : )

  2. Hi, you have real good information here on the se6. I bought one myself last November and am well impressed, although I did have to move the secondary mirror slightly as it was off-centre, took me over a month to find out why I couldnt get a good collimnation.

    I also use the neximage camera and have found much better results from it after updating its firmware to think its a spc900nc instead. Offers more options on gain, exposure, etc and better image quality with a yuy2 codec. I cant post a link but i found it on http://www.irishastro.org website in the forum for general amateur astronomy, topic:Workaround for windows7 incase ur interested in checking it out.

    Thanks for sharing your results and keep up the good work.

    Paddyman

    • paddyman – thanks for the great tip. I already downloaded the files from the forum. Can you tell me what exact new functionality the new firmware adds ?

      Thanks
      Marc

      • Its been that long since I used the old firmware I can hardly remember all the differences but the main ones are that using the YUY2 codec in the format settings gives a slightly better image result than the neximage firmware does in RAW mode and a lot better than the standard neximage quality output, saves all the hassle of converting RAW to colour avi.

        The gain settings also seem to extend much further and even at low gain I can still get a bright image using a higher shutter speed, there is also options to adjust blue+red balance to get the colours right(although i usually leave it on automatic).

        I have found that it helps to adjust the gamma and saturation to the left for more detail. I think there are more options for shutter speed and gain. It also works well with the WcCtrl webcam control utility if you need more control.

        Sorry if this is a long post, but if anyone tries the spc900nc firmware and doesnt find it more useful, it is easy to change the neximage back to standard with the same software.

        Cheers,
        Paddy

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