I was out doing some solar imaging recently and tried to get my son a bit more interested in the world that exists outside various electronic games devices by getting him to get some sunspot images using my modded Lifecam Cinema and his ST102. I’ve had problems with the Lifecam for planetary imaging because I think I just can’t get enough light onto it with my 127 Mak, but I was hoping that wouldn’t be an issue with the Sun. It wasn’t entirely successful largely owing to a deficit of patience on his part, but eventually we came away with this:
It’s not short of stacking artefacts (I had real problems stacking the images at all) and there’s a clear lack of dynamic range, but I think there’s enough data there to suggest that given a bit more time tweaking camera settings and experimenting with the processing the Lifecam could be quite an acceptable camera for solar imaging.