K3's AstroPhotography
"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have set in place, what is Man that You are mindful of him?" -- Psalm 8:3,4
Home-made adapter for using old camera objectives with Vesta 675SC webcam

Old camera objectives have advantage of relatively long focal length and low focal ratio (about 1:2). They can be used successfully for astrophotography in conjuction with modificated Vesta 675SC webcam. I have two old objectives from old 35mm camera (not functional yet). So they are cheap pieces of astro-optics for me. Here are their parameters:
Objective Flexon 2/50
Carl Zeiss Jena
 Sonnar 4/135
Carl Zeiss Jena
Focal length 50mm 135mm
Focal Ratio 1:2 1:4
Field of View (Vesta 675SC) 4° 6' x 3° 4' 1° 31' x 1° 8'

Both objectives have the same bayonet gripping. As I am an old radio-amateur, I decided to use double-sided printed circuit board (cuprextit) plate for manufacturing the adapter for webcam. The whole unit is soldered. The bayonet gripping is hold by 2 U-profiles wich are screwed to adapter body. The construction of whole unit is evident from the following pictures. (Click the picture to see it larger.)


Front side. Bayonet profile of opening is visible.		 Back side. 35mm film plastic canister was used for shielding. U-profiles on sides of picture are used for gripping of objective.

Objective gripping with U-profiles. Objective with U-profiles is screwed to adapter body by means of 4 screws.
Old but good objectives 4/135 and 2/50.

Side-view of the whole unit with 2/50 objective.
Side-view of the whole unit with 4/135 objective.

Front view of the whole unit with 2/50 objective. The 4 gripping screws screw are visible.		  

I plan to paint the whole unit with black color. But at first I have to do some tests with the adapter.

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Last Update: 10.11.2001