How to set your alarm for clear o'clock in the morning

[trent_julie]

Hi guys,

I thought I would share a project i have been working on of recent, esentially it is a clear sky detection device, it gives a value of sky clarity based on a star count and causes an alarm when the users preset conditions are met,

The concept is that the user will be awaken from slumber when the sky is clear, thus defeating the age old problem of setting an alarm every few hours as not to miss any clear sky. The link below is a youtube demonstration.

Thoughts and opinions as always are welcome.
Trent,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3DW04uW3YA

[Moon (James)]

lol : looks like the inverse of my wake up it's cloudy script.

Sounds very interesting. It would be great if it could be hooked up to a cheap all sky webcam attached to the outside of the observatory.

James

[trent_julie]

Thanks for the encouragement !


The clear sky detector system (Moondance) requires a DMK series camera with a lens and a mount of some form, I use a photographic tripod, no other accessories or devices are required. I would love to get my hands on a to-u-cam and test it with that.


Moondance can already take images at a predetermined rate, when it appears that the sky is clearing the Moondance will analyse images at a rate of once a minute, this is to eliminate a gap in clouds giving a false alarm.


Moondance will cease to monitor the sky after a user selected time, this is to prevent the user being woken up with a short amount of darkness left in the night


Moondance is already designed to tolerate light pollution (natural or man made) this is done by adjusting a few parameters that can be saved or loaded from pre-sets.

The limited FOV is limited only by the lenses I have at my disposal, with the appropiate lens/camera combo who sky measurement would be achieved

Trent

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

You can pick up 4mm c or cs mount (can't remember which) lenses at Jaycar for around about $20.

[AdrianF (Adrian)]

Astronomy Accessory of The Year.

Can't wait to see how you go.

Adrian

[trent_julie]

Hi everyone,
My project is now ready for Beta testing, the limitations are that a
DMK 41 is the only camera that will work, the full version is capable of other cameras.
The youtube clip shows some subtle differences in processing, please don't think the presentation too pretentious, thats not my the intent, let me know if you are interested and when I finalise my FTP arrangments you will be first to know.
YouTube clip can be found here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRGQXT2HN6s

Cheers,
Trent

[niko]

awesome idea!

how about picking up one of the Philips SPC880 webcams (that can be flashed to 900) nad giving it a go with one of those?

these seemed to be readily available (unlike to toucam) and were really cheap - circa $35 landed in Oz from the UK

good luck with the project though it won't get much testing in Vic with another 100mm of rain predicted for this week!

cheers

niko

[trent_julie]

Hi niko,

The original idea was for all webcams to be compatable with my software, but the company that provides the tools to write the camera interface software stopped supporting other brands of camera due to the large amount of troubles that resulted,

I intend to make it work with anything that can take an image with a variable exposure time, but this is a hefty amount of work to get done, so in the interim i was hoping to get some results from other people so I can make it as usable as possible.

I will be taking the project it down to melbourne this weekend to do some more testing, so since i'm looking for clouds maybe they will disappear???? we can only hope.

Trent

[spearo (Frank)]

I agree, Accessory of the year for 2011 i reckon

hope it works on toucam i have an old one
frank

Originally Posted by AdrianF

Astronomy Accessory of The Year.

Can't wait to see how you go.

Adrian

[turbo_pascale (Rob)]

Originally Posted by trent_julie

The clear sky detector system (Moondance) requires a DMK series camera with a lens and a mount of some form,
Trent

Would it work with the colour cams (I have a Firewire DBK31)? If you want to test it, let me know.

Turbo

[allan gould]

Really interesting idea and I hope that it comes to fruition. A rePly great service to astophotographers and the amateur ranks.

[trent_julie]

Hello everyone,

I have finally finished my project, it has been a lot of work with much input and suggestions form other people to make it all come together, I have got the system working with a fish-eye camera successfully, so now I have to sit and wait for the compitition, a nervous wait that will be indeed.

anyway here is my latest video, I hope it is to your liking

Trent

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr6LS8Jz5Q0

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

Sounds great the only problem with it at the moment is we are having it go from clear to cloudy and back again about 10 times a night the blumin thing would keep waking me up

[erick (Eric)]

Forget the details of the technology - I want this "black box"!

[trent_julie]

Thanks for the boost in confidence,

Erick, you will soon be able to download a copy of the moondance software, my webpage is under construction as we speak, however any time-frame is not viable considering the website is being constructed very cheaply...(Julie)

Warren, that anoyance is already countered...... its one of the things that motivated me to change my software early in testing, due to getting cranky with it....

Trent

[trent_julie]

Hi all,
The Moondance clear sky detection software is now ready for download, it can be found at the yahoo group "moondancecsd".

Trent,

[trent_julie]

I thought I would share the latest news with respect to my software, it can now analyse any image file from any source in addition to the functions stated earlier. Here is a quick video of me putting it through its paces.

Trent

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz2oQgnBLJY

[Moon (James)]

Trent
This is very good news. Well done.
James

[trent_julie]

I have just heard word that my software will be used for the cloud cover detection for an astrofarm in South Africa, I'm absolutly cheering all the work I have put into it over the last year is starting to pay off!

Trent

[gary]

Originally Posted by trent_julie

I have just heard word that my software will be used for the cloud cover detection for an astrofarm in South Africa, I'm absolutly cheering all the work I have put into it over the last year is starting to pay off!

Trent

Great to hear Trent!