Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 5:35 pm
Yes. Sometimes have to be patient. 
river wrote:What should I do if I have to order online from Grandeye. I never use paypal before and I can't find any order form on this website. Anyone can help me on this? Thanks
Hi river,
I bought the Philips Toucam Pro II from Grandeye of HK in late August this year.
http://www.grandeye.com.hk
Price was as follows:
Webcam: HK$660
EMS courier to Singapore: HK$110
Total: HK$770 (about S$168)
This includes the 1.25" adaptor, which I believe is commonly known as the "Mogg Adapter". What you would do is to unscrew off the lens on the webcam, and screw in the adapter. Very easy. Then the webcam is just like a 1.25" eyepiece.
I did not get the IR-cut filter as it is a comparatively substantial additional expense, and my Mars and Saturn photos seem just fine without it. Maybe i will get it one day, although Mr. TG Tan has made a cheap homemade adpater from exposed print-film, see:
http://www.angelfire.com/space2/tgtan/infrared.htm
I will try that soon!
As for payment, Grandeye (Anthony) does not take credit card payments. I don't think he accepts paypal either. He specified HK$ bank drafts. I think his website also says you can pay by wire transfer into his bank account.
I sent him a HK$ bank draft. You can buy it from a bank branch in Singapore, e.g. DBS, Bank of China, etc. The fee is S$10. Then post it to him. A bit of a hassle, but EMS takes only 2-3 days to arrive from HK.
I had one slight hitch in that the Philips CD-Rom which came with the webcam could not be read at all. I tried it on 3 computers. So Anthony sent me the files on a CD-ROM which he copied.
Here is a stacked and sharpened photo of Saturn which I took a few days ago with the webcam and my LX-90 with a 3x barlow. It is so-so as a CCD image bec the seeing conditions were poor, and maybe my technique needs to be improved. However, "so-so" is a relative term bec this is 100x better than my best film photo of Saturn, so I'm quite thrilled with the result. !!