All Sky Cameras

[AstroApprentice (Jason)]

I’ve noticed a growing list of manufacturers have discontinued All Sky cameras in the last few years:
Moonglow Technologies - discontinued
Orion Starshoot Allsky - discontinued
SBIG/Diffraction Ltd Allsky 340 - discontinued

Interactive Astronomy SkyEye - temporarily discontinued due to parts shortage
Allsky Optics - website down, but Facebook suggests supply issues with lens
Telescope Support Systems DIY kits - website crashes/links to malware

As far as I’m aware, that leaves two expensive options:
Starlight Xpress Oculus $$ or Oculus Pro $$$
Alcor Alphea $$$$

Does anyone know of any other manufacturers?

[Paul Haese]

Or you could do what the rest of us have done is make your own Allsky camera. See the links below.

https://github.com/thomasjacquin/allsky

http://www.thomasjacquin.com/make-yo...allsky-camera/

Very easy to make and at a half of the price of the commercial ones.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Reckon I might have to have a crack at that at some point, I have often thought it would be nice to put up an allsky cam and thought one of the ASI cams was probably the ticket.

I wonder if a Pi with a POE hat on it would receive enough power to run the camera. I would be able to put it on the roof of the house and get a network cable to it from my POE switch and do away with the wifi.

[Paul Haese]

Yes a pi with POE hat is good for running an ASI camera. Never had any issues doing that. Our camera has been running for over 12 months continuously.

[gjr80 (Gary)]

I've been tempted to build an all sky camera myself but I started thinking about temperatures in the enclosure through the day, particularly in Summer. Probably over thinking it but when I saw ZWO stating an operating temperature range of -5 to +45C and storage temperature ranges of -20C to +60C I wondered if I might end up frying the camera over time.

When I was researching a while back most of the DIY all sky camera builds I found were from the higher latitudes where the cold is probably more of an issue (and easier to solve) than the heat.

Gary

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

Yes a pi with POE hat is good for running an ASI camera. Never had any issues doing that. Our camera has been running for over 12 months continuously.

Great to hear. I am sitting here looking at a Pi 2B that is in between jobs at the moment, nice to think I could do something useful with it if I go get a POE hat.