The orbit? That's cool, but then you'd have to either use a GPS to orient it, or manually input everything yourself? So you have to hook up the webcam to the computer? I could maybe face the webcam out my window... That might work. lol
I also see a star overlay kind of? If it sees stars it can orient itself that way?
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. After it you can saw in a map ( of United States for example ) how is the real distance of the meteor to you. 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 this you can run another ( free ) software produced by Sonotaco to determine the orbit of the meteor. But you can determine it only with your observations, with less accuracy, of course.
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 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 !
Edit: I see the program is super expensive, and I assume the camera is too... What exactly would a person look for if they wanted a cheaper camera?
Yes UFOCapture are far expensive, one alternative are the far less expensive
software Handyavi, but it´s not so sofisticated.
About 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:
1)
KPC-350BH - it´s a good camera for this work and costs only $76 ( against $287 of WATEC Ultimate )
-
http://france.allsky.camera.free.fr/test-camera-en.html-
http://dragonneo.net/~bigcountrywx/meteorcamabout.php2) You will need a luminous auto iris lens like
Fujinon YV2.7X2.9LA-2 2.9-8mm3) You will need a analog to digital conversor, I have a
Canopus ADVC55. 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.
4) And you will need some firewire board
At all you will you will spend $279.95 with all equipament.
In EBAY
you can found a seller that sells WATEC 902H ( not the "Ultimate" but better than KPC ) for $89.95.
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