Binocularcam
Years ago I ran the Monkeypaw.com Decomposition Experiment which was a webcam pointed at Hostess Twinkie and Snowball to see which would decompose first. After a year or more of running this cam (and no visible signs of change between either snack cake) I took the cam down.
The other night I stumbled across my old USB webcam and started thinking what I could cam this time around. Perhaps something useful and not stupid snack cakes. I live on the river at the moment so I started thinking Rivercam, Goosecam, Dockcam, Snoop-on-the-people-in-the-houseboat-cam.. all swell ideas I'm sure. I was kind of wishing this old cam had better optics. I wish I could point it at a volcano or something. That would made a nice webcam.
Then I wondered if you could point this camera through the eyepiece of binoculars. (Insert image of me pondering the idea while rubbing chin)
I got the cam installed into the computer and got out the binoculars for a little test run. Sure enough it kind of works.
The casing on the front of the cam stuck out a bit far to get a good image. The subject though the binocular appeared in a circle through the webcam. If only I could get the camera lens closer to the eye piece. Now, where did I put that screwdriver?
After I took the casing off, the camera lens fit snug against the eye piece of the binoculars resulting in a fairly good image.
I bet a bit of glue could hold this in place.
Before I go on wasting a perfecting good camera and binocular I decided to see if this would result in a good enough image to continue this idea. I fire up the laptop, install the cam software, and drag the entire lot outside. Now, where did I put that rubberband?
Here's what the mess looked like.
A better shot of above
For testing I went ahead and wrapped the band around the front of the binocular lens. I was mostly interested to see if the I could get a good enough image with or without a rubberband in the way.
Now, where did I put that volcano?
Let's point this thing at the volcano
This is the resulting image
(I should have thought to take one without the binocular)
Out of the way bird!
This is a shot of the ferris wheel across the river.
This looks promising. Tomorrow I'm going shopping for a cheap binocular or kiddie telescope to tear apart. Perhaps a little glue is in order as well. Who knows, I might even spring for a better camera.
Something tells me I'll also be digging in the old parts bin and building a little webcam server.
..to be continued.
(update)
Build your own Nocularcam