3 - In the beginning...

My first telescope 2010

It all started on Christmas day 2010. That is when I received a telescope as a gift from one of my daughters. It was a Meade RB-60 telescope with a 60mm aperture & a 700mm focal length F/11.7. The quality is not very good, but it was a perfect starter telescope for me. Its cost is about $100 dollars.

The first time I used it (first light) was when I got hooked. I took it out and focused on the moon. I was simply amazed at what I could see from my patio. The detail was like nothing I had seen for myself, only in magazine pictures. I then focused on what I thought was the brightest star in the sky, only to discover that it was not a star but the planet Saturn. WOW! I wanted more.

After several months of gazing at the few bright objects in my night sky, I had  what I thought was a brilliant idea. Why don't I connect a webcam to my telescope so I can view the objects on my laptop and record pictures and video of the things I see? I already had a small Acer Aspire Notebook  (a small & cheap laptop) and a cheap Logitech C120 webcam. So I taped the webcam to the telescope eyepiece and connected it to my notebook. I had a hard time finding objects and focusing on them, not to mention trying to track the objects and keep them in view, but after a couple of hours of adjustments and tinkering I was finally able to get some images. I was able to capture Saturn. I took a few images and videos.

Saturn taken with webcam

I was pleased with the results at the time but I later wondered if it was possible to obtain better quality images with webcams, so I started doing some research on-line to see if anyone else was using webcams on telescopes. As you can imagine, I found tons of information and how-to videos on this subject. After spending a couple of weeks digging into all this information, I decided to buy a couple of webcams that were recommended by various people on-line. I went shopping on Ebay for a used HP HD4110 and a used Logitech Pro 5000 webcam. I bought them for $45 and $20 respectively. I also purchased from Ebay a Webcam-to-Telescope adapter for the Logitech Pro for $12. The HP webcam is 1080p high resolution and the Logitech was highly recommended. Both webcams required some simple modifications to remove the lenses. The Youtube how-to videos were very helpful with this. As soon as a clear dark sky was available, I did a side-by-side comparison with all 3 webcams and was disappointed with the results. All 3 webcams produced almost identical images and videos. The HP was slightly better, but not by much. The clarity is not very good as you can see in the above picture and video. I decided that I wanted a better picture. That meant I needed better equipment to achieve the results I wanted. The quality of the telescope I had was not suited for what I was trying to do. Time to do some research for a new telescope.

 Yes... I was now hooked on this thing they called "Astrophotography", but I didn't know it yet.