Lunar and Planetary Webcam User’s Guide

✍ Scribed by Martin Mobberley (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag London
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 230
• Series: Patrick Moore’s Practical Astronomy Series
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Inexpensive webcams are revolutionizing imaging in amateur astronomy by providing an affordable alternative to cooled-chip astronomical CCD cameras, for photographing the brighter astronomical objects.

Webcams – costing only a few tens of dollars – are capable of more advanced high resolution work than "normal" digital cameras because their rapid image download speed can freeze fine planetary details, even through the Earth's turbulent atmosphere. Also, their simple construction makes it easy to remove the lens, allowing them to be used at high power at the projected focus of an astronomical telescope. Webcams also connect direct to a PC, so that software can be used to "stack" multiple images, providing a stunning increase in image quality.

In the Lunar and Planetary Webcam User’s Guide Martin Mobberley de-mystifies the jargon of webcams and computer processing, and provides detailed hints and tips for imaging the Sun, Moon and planets with a webcam. He looks at each observing target separately, describing and explaining all specialised techniques in context.

Glance through the images in this book to see just how much you can – easily – achieve by using a webcam with your telescope!

✦ Table of Contents

The Solar System: A Brief Introduction....Pages 1-9
Webcams, Plus a “Quick Start” Guide....Pages 11-14
High-Resolution Essentials....Pages 15-49
Planetary Imagers Worldwide....Pages 51-58
Have Webcam, Will Travel....Pages 59-68
Planetary Webcams and Their Alternatives....Pages 69-77
A Beginner’s Guide to Using a Webcam....Pages 79-92
Detailed Image Processing, Colors and LRGB....Pages 93-107
Advanced Stacking of Rippling AVI Frames....Pages 109-117
Imaging the Moon....Pages 119-154
Imaging Mercury and Venus....Pages 155-164
Imaging Mars....Pages 165-173
Imaging Jupiter....Pages 175-191
Imaging Saturn....Pages 193-205
Imaging Uranus and Neptune....Pages 207-209
Imaging the Sun....Pages 211-222

✦ Subjects

Popular Science in Astronomy; Astronomy