In EBAY you can found a seller that sells WATEC 902H ( not the "Ultimate" but better than KPC ) for $89.95.Ĭonnect a SPC900NC to computer is nothing special, is a common USB connection.īut to capture and process the astronomical images you need to use some softwares ( almost all free ). Note that not all video capture board or analog to digital conversor are compatible with UFOCapture but you can try less expensives USB2.0 capture device, but I don´t know if it's compatible with UFOCapture.Īt all you will you will spend $279.95 with all equipament. Yes UFOCapture are far expensive, one alternative are the far less expensive software Handyavi, but it´s not so sofisticated.Ībout the cameras, you can use the SPC900NC, as I said earlier, but if you want play for real you will need more sensitives cameras like mine or some more cheaper options:ġ) KPC-350BH - it´s a good camera for this work and costs only $76 ( against $287 of WATEC Ultimate )Ģ) You will need a luminous auto iris lens like Fujinon YV2.7X2.9LA-2 2.9-8mmģ) You will need a analog to digital conversor, I have a Canopus ADVC55. But in the northern hemisphere you are more lucky than us in Brazil cause great showers like Perseids, Leonids ou Geminds are favorable for you and it costume produce bright meteors and even fireballs ! You can capture meteros and satélites with Webcams too, after my WATEC i use my SPC900NC ( a common one, not modificated that costs only $47 in EBAY ) to do this, but the luminosity sensibility of the webcam is far less than the WATEC so don´t expect got so many meteors. But you can determine it only with your observations, with less accuracy, of course. After this you can run another ( free ) software produced by Sonotaco to determine the orbit of the meteor. If more than one person in two or more localities shot the same meteors you can trace with more precision this location by triangulation. After it you can saw in a map ( of United States for example ) how is the real distance of the meteor to you.
PHILIPS WEBCAM SPC900NC SOFTWARE WINDOWS 10 MANUAL
I insert my latitude, longitude and altitude data, the software uses scintilation masks to determine the velocity, altitude and direction of movement of meteors, you need only to make some manual job. I'm go sleep and when one meteor cross the camera field the software capture it ! In the next day I saw what was captured.īut UFOcapture not only capture the meteors, it can be used to says how is the altitude, direction, velocity, and at last trace the orbit of the object : It´s a motion capture software designed to capture very fast and transient eventswidely, cause this it´s widely used for meteors and transient atmospheric phenomena like sprites, lightings, and others ( but I also see it being used to register star occultation by asteroids and meteorite lunar impacts ).
It´s apropriated cause it´s fast, have little noise and have great low lux sensibility ( it can capture images even with 0.000033 lux ! ).īut to capture the meteors I use the software UFOCapture. The camera used is specific: " WATEC 902h2 Ultimate". In this video I'm trying to capture some meteors of Lyrids shower, but that's not the shower's maximum day and all captured meteors are random ( but cool ) meteors at common night in a high illuminated urban night sky.