All Sky Camera - Help

[N1]

Hi Guys,

We are thinking about installing an all-sky camera on a rooftop. The plan is for a reasonable resolution and image quality, ability to record things like Aurorae, show the Milky Way, yet work during the day also, for cloud appreciation purposes :rolleyes:. Proposed FoV is 180° looking up, i.e. whole sky. Ideally, it would have its own power supply (solar), image server and internet connection (3G). Needless to say it will need to be weatherproof.

Given the amount of knowledge concentrated on this forum, and to save us from having to reinvent the wheel, has anybody here done something similar, and with what equipment? Obviously we are going to trawl the net for info, but I though I might ask here first.

Any help would be appreciated, cheers.

[julianh72]

I have a ZWO ASI120MC which ships with a 150-degree fish-eye lens, for less than US$300. It has the dynamic range to do both daytime and night-time live video or time lapse "almost-all-sky" imaging (down to about 15 degrees above the horizon). It gets its power from the laptop computer or similar which controls it via USB cable, and you would need to mount it in a weatherproof dome for a fixed installation.

A slightly dearer option is the Orion StarShoot All-In-One, which can be supplied with a true 180-degree lens and housing.

You can get information on both cameras from Bintel and other sources.

[Octane]

Julian,

Any tips for a weatherproof dome? I like the look of the 120MC -- will add it to my list. Hopefully there's some simple software that can get it to take images every minute (and, upload to a web server so that I can check the sky conditions from bed; I am happy to write my own system to get it to do that if it can't be done out of the box).

H

[julianh72]

I haven't bought a dome for mine, but you can get security camera domes cheap from eBay Dick Smith, Jaycar, etc. The cheapest of all are the "dummy security cameras" - I imagine you coddl open one up, remove the blinking LED, and install your fish-eye equipped astro-cam inside. You'd probably want a clear dome rather than a tinted dome for the best night-time use.

[Octane]

Cheers, mate.

Also, the widefield lens, is it included in the kit? Or, did you have to make a separate purchase?

H

[julianh72]

The ZWO ASI120 series all shipped with the 2.1 mm 150-degree lens when I bought mine last year. (And it will take other CS-mount CCTV lenses - I have a 6 mm - 15 mm zoom, which is good for wide-field shooting when the camera is mounted "piggy-back" onto my telescope - it cost me $20 on eBay.) I'm not sure about the other ZWO camera models - the standard publicity shots show some with a CCTV lens and some without.

The ZWO web site http://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/ was revamped recently and doesn't have as much information on "what's in the box" as it used to - it might be worth contacting ZWO (or your preferred reseller) to confirm for the particular model you're interested in.

Note that there are both colour (120MC) and monochrome (120MM) variants, and it also comes in USB2 and USB3 interaces - so many choices! I have the USB2 colour model, but I believe the mono version offers greater sensitivity. There are some good reviews here:

http://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/wp-content/uploads/ASI120-cameras-SkyTelescope2014.pdf
http://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/wp-content/uploads/ASI120-cameras-SkyAtNight2013.pdf
http://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/wp-content/uploads/ASI120-cameras-AstronomyNow2013.pdf

[Peter Ward]

I've made a few all-sky cams now.

See:
http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/AllSkyMod/Allsky.html

The STi has been replaced by a Ponit Grey Cricket IP camera. It gets power over an Ethernet cable and runs under VLC freeware.

It updates images via an auto ftp script every three minutes to here

http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/SkyCam/SkyCam.html

[N1]

Thanks guys, that's a lot of good info. :thumbsup: Peter, I can see the Moon is up over your obs!

I might be back with some questions later on.

[julianh72]

For what it's worth - here's a link to some time-lapses that I shot with the ZWO ASI120MC last night, using the supplied 2.1 mm fish-eye lens, and the 6mm-15mm zoom lens which i bought separately for $20.

http://julianh72.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/some-more-night-sky-time-lapses-with.html

[Moon]

It's not an all-sky camera, but this is what I did for my meteor camera. It might give you some ideas.

http://deepspaceplace.com/meteor.php

[julianh72]

Jaycar have a special on their "Dummy Dome Camera" - it's just $7.95:

http://www.jaycar.com.au/CCTV-%26-Surveillance/CCTV-%26-Surveillance-Cameras/Camera-Accessories/Dummy-Dome-Camera-with-Flashing-LED-and-CCTV-Sticker/p/LA5332

I can't vouch for how weatherproof it is (nor how optically clear the dome is - it looks to be tinted rather than clear), but it's a pretty cheap experiment at that price.