My all sky camera project has seen various iterations, but the last seems to be the most successful, and is based on a Point Grey Cricket IP security camera.
see
http://www.ptgrey.com/cricket-ip-security-camera
The camera is powered over its ethernet cable and is now mounted on the roof of my house.
Occasionally it catches some cool weather phenomena
An example can be seen here
(you'll need a quicktime plug in on your browser)