Converting a old webcam into a planetary camera

This post is archived.

This post was originally published on my old blog dedicated to amateur astronomy.

Willing to test EQAlign I decided to grab an old webcam I had here (Logitech C270 HD) and convert it to a so called “planetary camera”. It consists of removing the built-in lens and replacing it with a telescope.  So I removed the lens and glued a 1.25” ocular tube to the plastic case, then I could easily attach/detach it to/from telescope focusers.

Starting to disassembly:

This black dusty thing is the lens, I need to remove it:

Two screws in the back held it in place:

Sensor exposed (I forgot to photograph, but this component marked as D1 is a green LED that lights up when the camera is being used. I covered it with black electrical tape so it won’t mess with the sensor):

Reassembly without the lens and gluing the 1.25” ocular tube. It’s really important to center the sensor on the tube. (Used super glue here):

I got this tube from a crappy ocular I had here, so I used the ocular lens itself as a dust cover for the sensor:

Cut off the webcam support:

Added black tape all around it to prevent light from entering:

And just out of curiosity, you can use this on a DSLR lens:

I was able to take this picture using this lens, kinda funny:

Now it’s time to test it on a telescope:

Pointing it to the top of a far away building:

Used the notebook on Google Hangouts for a proof of concept and it worked great, just a little bit of dust on the sensor but that is easily cleaned (The low quality is due to atmospheric perturbations):

So I decided to connect my control station with Ekos / INDI:

And got it streaming wireless to my workstation, where I can also control the mount using a X Box joystick:

It was fun to do this, now I’ll manage to clean the sensor and proceed to try polar alignment using EQAlign.