Bolts_Tweed
15-02-2012, 10:28 PM
gday
A couple of guys I met in California last year prompted me to have a go at building an all sky camera myself (they were Wes - www.astrobytes.net (http://www.astrobytes.net) and Jim http://jimstar11.com/Index.html. They have thier versions of the camera running on their websites - thanks guys. Here are the results so far. It is built around a QHY5 i had surplus to needs but they use old DSIs that they can get pretty cheap over there.
All up it cost me between $25 and $30 apart from the QHY5. I bought a cheap cctv lens with a 12 mm 0.5 mm pitch thread from ebay - about $9(see picture) and an acrylic optical dome from www.surplusshed.com (http://www.surplusshed.com) about$4. There is a little bit of maching in fitting the 12mm thread to the 42mm thread of the QHY but I just turned up some acetyl (hard plastic) to do the job. The 12 mm internal thread allows focusing. I also turned up the retaining ring for the dome from an old PVC sheet - it has a small recess to take the lip on the base of the dome and put a gasket on the base.
The only other bits were a project box I had lying around (ok I am a geek) - you could use an old lunch box if you really wanted to - and a small 12 volt computer fan in the box that curculates the small amount of heat from the camera through the holes under the dome to preent dew from building up on the dome - works fine.
The image quality is average but I am yet to see really good image quality from an all sky camera so I am not too worried. I only want to see the sky at my remote observatory. I also have an aag cloud detector but it is nice to see the sky too.
One of the Californian guys has written some software that uses the camera dialogue of Maxim DL to control the camera. It can overwrite the image each exposure or save images sequentially to stiitch together later into a movie. It also has an ADU cutoff to stop taking images in daylight. I am sure it is up for sharing if anyone is interested.
Anyway just in case anyone wants to have a go I thought I would present it. Also attached is an image from tonight on the Gold Coast before it started raining.
Mark Bolton
A couple of guys I met in California last year prompted me to have a go at building an all sky camera myself (they were Wes - www.astrobytes.net (http://www.astrobytes.net) and Jim http://jimstar11.com/Index.html. They have thier versions of the camera running on their websites - thanks guys. Here are the results so far. It is built around a QHY5 i had surplus to needs but they use old DSIs that they can get pretty cheap over there.
All up it cost me between $25 and $30 apart from the QHY5. I bought a cheap cctv lens with a 12 mm 0.5 mm pitch thread from ebay - about $9(see picture) and an acrylic optical dome from www.surplusshed.com (http://www.surplusshed.com) about$4. There is a little bit of maching in fitting the 12mm thread to the 42mm thread of the QHY but I just turned up some acetyl (hard plastic) to do the job. The 12 mm internal thread allows focusing. I also turned up the retaining ring for the dome from an old PVC sheet - it has a small recess to take the lip on the base of the dome and put a gasket on the base.
The only other bits were a project box I had lying around (ok I am a geek) - you could use an old lunch box if you really wanted to - and a small 12 volt computer fan in the box that curculates the small amount of heat from the camera through the holes under the dome to preent dew from building up on the dome - works fine.
The image quality is average but I am yet to see really good image quality from an all sky camera so I am not too worried. I only want to see the sky at my remote observatory. I also have an aag cloud detector but it is nice to see the sky too.
One of the Californian guys has written some software that uses the camera dialogue of Maxim DL to control the camera. It can overwrite the image each exposure or save images sequentially to stiitch together later into a movie. It also has an ADU cutoff to stop taking images in daylight. I am sure it is up for sharing if anyone is interested.
Anyway just in case anyone wants to have a go I thought I would present it. Also attached is an image from tonight on the Gold Coast before it started raining.
Mark Bolton