Astral Weeks astronomy design photography projects by Mark Parrish
MiniSolarcam
The design and manufacture of a 40 mm web cam scope
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This tiny scope was made in preparation for the Transit of Venus. I have had some success with web cam photography but wanted to keep the main telescope clear for other use. The idea of this scope was to provide a live feed for onlookers to see.
The objective is from a broken pair of binoculars - the other was used in a finderscope for my 222mm reflector. This is held in a split section of PVC plumbing pipe with a jubilee clip. This section is a push fit into the second piece of pipe which allows the tube to be varied in length to bring the image in to focus.
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The Webcam adaptor push-fits onto the end of the pipe (with a little masking tape packing). I made a “dew shield” from the lid to a can of spray paint. The whole tube and dew shield are lined with rolled up black paper and the unit is shown mounted on my home made camera bracket with a simple piece of bent steel strip.
Image of the moon taken with the MiniSolarcam during construction. The image could have been improved with more care in the capture of the AVI file.
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Image of the Sun taken with the MiniSolarcam during construction. The image is not very interesting because there was virtually no solar activity but at least the camera functioned correctly!