The Xbox Live camera has found something of a following as a cheap planetary/lunar imaging camera since the SPC900 (which is undoubtedly a far better camera) started fetching silly prices. I’ve always found it very noisy however. The camera does get quite warm and it seems reasonable to assume therefore that the noise is partly due to heat. I’d seen someone else mod the camera to fit a fan, so I thought I’d have a go myself. I picked up a 30mm 5V fan from Ebay, cut a suitable hole in the back of the case, wired the fan to the USB 5V and ground lines and it seems to work nicely, at least as far as desktop testing goes. Proper testing will have to wait for a clear night I’ve not had one of those for a month 🙁 Here’s a photo of how it looks, anyhow:
