Seeing the Moon Through a Webcam

A few weeks ago I was able to see the Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin craters near the Apollo 11 landing site using my cell phone camera. I think my cheap webcam should be able to do the same, perhaps even see a bit better, so I decided to give it a try.

Sadly the weather ended up not being able clear as the internet said it would, but I still gave it a try before the heavy clouds ended my night. There was a hazy halo around the moon, so I'm sure my images aren't as sharp as they could be.

Apollo 11 landing site

Tycho crater

These images were both 1.5 minute video captures from my webcam connected to a 2x Barlow lens. The telescope is a 10 inch dobsonian that is carefully hand tracked. Frames were aligned and stacked in autostakkert (keeping top 33% of frames), and the images were sharpened with wavelet filters in registax. I did some final level adjustments in darktable.

The astronaut craters weren't visible this time, but I think if I get another nice clear evening I may be able to catch them. I think the weather was the limiting factor, not the webcam.