Philips ToUcam Pro "first light"

November 30, 2003 was a historic day for me. On that day I used the ToUcam Pro webcam on astronomical targets for the first time. At this time I didn't have a laptop so imaging was not easy, I had to keep the telescope very near a window to be able to connect the camera to my desktop computer which was inside (taking it outside was out of the question since it is connnected to a whole lot of stuff).

The Moon
The Moon on November 30, 2003 at approximately 19:00 UTC
Telescope: Intes MN61
Camera: Philips ToUcam Pro 840K webcam with IR blocking filter

The image quality is bad since the Moon was only a little over 10 degrees above the horizon and it was windy.
Image processing is only rudimentary; I'm expecting far better results from future attemps.

Click the image for full size version.

Saturn
The following image of Saturn was obtained on the same evening shortly after midnight using identical setup except that I also used a Tele Vue 2x Barlow. Seeing was extremely bad, I even had some trouble seeing the Cassini division which usually pops into view immediately. This is the best image and was selected using a program I wrote that sorts the images based on sharpness. Seeing was too bad for image stacking to be possible.

Despite the bad image quality I was rather happy since I had almost no problems finding Saturn despite the small field of view. However, the image is too small but I now have a Powermate 5x and patiently wait for the evil clouds to disappear.