Lunar and Planetary Webcam User's Guide

In the last few years, cheap webcams have revolutionised amateur astronomy by providing a very inexpensive alternative to purpose-made astronomical CCD cameras, which use refrigerated imaging chips and are thus extremely expensive. Webcams are capable of more advanced work than 'normal' digital cameras because their simple construction makes it easy to remove the webcam's lens, allowing it to be interfaced directly to a telescope. Using a webcam is not difficult but most amateur astronomers who have tried to do this do not achieve the finest results, despite the webcam's potential. There are numerous imaging and image processing tricks and techniques, and all of them are needed to get the best results.
Along with webcam technology has come simple-to-use image processing and enhancement using a PC: the most powerful technique is, 'stacking' in which the best images (out of hundreds) are selected and summed automatically to provide startlingly good results.