Paul M

The software I use is Raspberry Pi specific: https://github.com/AllskyTeam/allsky It's quite comprehensive, very configurable - to the point of taking your life over! And does have a meteor detection module/plugin that's still experimental. I haven't used it. As you'll see from the full night timelapse below, the camera is sited under a busy flight path of Transatlantic and domestic flights. There are multiple satellite flares there too. So I suspect it might be hard work training software to pick out meteors from all the noise. I could be wrong The PoE is stable, but as noted above, getting the right gear is important. The current Pi 4 reports the odd "under volt" when it's busy, such as when it's crunching the images to make the timelapse. I've already upgraded the PoE switch that supplies the power and I'm going to replace the splitter for a higher rated one. I had some teething problems initially, long period connection drop-outs but not loss of power. It turned out that the Pi was connecting via WiFi, which is a bit flakey in that spot - outside an aluminium caravan! The Pi was set to prioritise WiFi over Ethernet. Now corrected that but still have the WiFi connected as back up. The Pi has crashed to unstable states a couple of times, VNC not connecting so unable to go in and fix it, but did have SSH. A bit complex really. I have a mini PC on site also. That lives inside. I can VNC into that then SSH to the Pi to reboot it. That's mostly just a hazard of remote computers, not particularly PoE, and it's rare. PoE has been better than I'd expected. It's not a very long run and only Cat5 cable, maybe 20mts. I do have all the bits to run power and ethernet separately or even just have the camera on its own via a long USB 3 cable. None of that was needed. Anyway, last night was very clear oop north. April 25-26.mp4

In a land far, far away, Cumbria to be exact, there is a pristine clear sky. I'm not there to witness it, but the Paulsky Camera is! While flicking through the images, I spotted a nice meteor. So here is that frame. It'll be lost as a sub-second flash in the overnight time-lapse. Cloud and moonlight have been blighting the Allsky Camera recently but it's improving again, maybe a window of opportunity before the all-night-twilight sets in. The Great Glowing Cheesball is just starting to affect the camera now. So, it's downhill for the rest of the night... In other news, emboldened by @Skipper Billy's Allsky camera linked to above, I've ordered a lens that will fit the whole image circle on the ASI 178 sensor. So a full 180deg view. That and I've ordered a much bigger dome. Again, Skipper Billy suggested that on his website as it allows ventilation holes to be drilled around the camera, allowing the very warm air from the RasPi to circulate in the dome, hopefully keeping it condensation free. There is a newly released firmware (EEPROM) for the Raspi, which allows even greater overclocking. I can't dream of taking the enclosed Pi to the max but I still had the original firmware on my Pi 4B which limited the CPU to 1.5 MHz, I've now set it to 2.0 Mhz. It might, and probably will cook in the summer. So I'll likely stop recording daytime images and just let it idle in the heat of the day. I'm looking to swap the Pi4 for my Pi5 to limit some of the issues with image handling. I tried at the weekend but it balked at boot-up, complaining of voltage drop. Thinking about it, the PoE splitter is only rated at 2A, so I've got a higher rated one on order. The PoE injector is a big 8 channel PoE switch rated at 85w total load. It is also running 2 x PoE surveillance cameras, but I'm confident that total load will be compliant. That'll be an ongoing project into the summer, due to my limited opportunities to get up there once the parts arrive.

It is indeed a very pleasant image, natural and easy on the eye. And yes, if I hadn't been told different, I'd have taken this as a very well presented M33, from an aesthetic point of view. I dabble myself but, I aint no imager. I'm an appreciator of fine images and on the subject of NB and Mono, I sometimes find that harshly blended Ha layers can be quite "jerking" on an otherwise fine image. Just sayin' Not unlike taking portrait of your favorite niece and highlighting the zits... 😁

As I often do with other's images, I took the liberty of downloading, solving and investigating this fine image, just to see what's there. I expected there to be a few Quasars in there, so using ASTAP annotation filtered for QSO's, I got the result below. Rather a lot of them! 🤪 and it looks like you got a few pixels for many/most.

Superb!

That's an excellent build you have there David. I've been thinking about changing the lense but wanted to see how I got on with the kit lens included with ASI178 first. It is quite a crop on the short axis and already annoying me! Getting a true 180deg view would be nice and make it more practical to then record only a square ROI and put the N/S axis in the vertical. Thanks for the lens suggestion. I will very likely source one in the near future. I'm very interested the focusing solution you have too. Not too worried about auto focus or ASCOM drivers. I could just have a little routine on the Pi to manually drive the focus on demand, rack o'th'eye, though focus seems quite stable as is. This Allsky camera is the most fun I've had with gadgets for a long time so it's only right to continue tinkering. I'll probably build a website too... someday

Here is the overnight timelapse. It shows the aurora nicely. As already noted, the red aurora upset the white balance. So that's no longer in auto. I seem to have a condensation bloom there too. I'm back on site at the weekend so might look at connecting the dew heater. It's been wet oop north so the whole thing might be awash inside the case! Just a shame that the Great Glowing Cheeseball ruined a nice aurora. Aurora 16 April.mp4

Interestingly, the image colour balance has just been going haywire as I'm watching the Aurora. It's gone green. I suspect the red of the aurora has tipped the auto white balance! So, as this is a learning curve I just turned auto white balance off and re-booted the PaulSky Pi. Hopefully not ruined the time-lapse. Actually the white balance losing the plot probably already has done...

Via my remote allsky camera I saw a (still active as at 23:15) aurora:

There is quite an aurora going on right now. Probably drowned out by moonlight for visual observers but might be worth a punt with a camera.:

Tonight's Aurora forecast is better than last night's and the weather is forecast to be clearer. So I'm hoping to get some more late season, Moonlit aurora.

In the cold light of day, I now have the overnight timelapse. It runs dawn to dawn and the PaullSky Pi then FTP's it to another Mini PC ( a cute little N100 from Chineshire) that came with W11 but got retrofitted with Ubuntu (I'm done with headless PC's balking at Microsofts demands). That machine is the server for my other survelance cameras via AgentDVR, I can VNC into both Pi and PC should I need to but Agent drills through the portforwarding and dynamic IP malarky and gives me a lovely screen showing the normal camera's live view, the latest frame from the PaulSky camera and the current dawn to dawn Paulsky Timelapse. Until I find a way to lash it up differently, the MP4 just plays contininuously. I can download the the file to my home PC for editing such as below where I've trimmed the timelaps to show the overnight period only. You'll see the ickle aurora at the 8 o'clock position at around the 23:00 mark. Untitled video.mp4

Another first for the PaulSky Camera tonight, a short burst of Aurora, either that or the reactor's alight.... The forecast has a broad but not highly intense Auroral Oval oval for the period so it certainly looks like it. Other frames, though not as intense, show more definite rays. North is to the left. The red at the 8 o'clock moved around and spread over 20 minutes or so and faded.

There are only a few days around New Moon when the Moon isn't visible. So at new moon its in the same bit of sky as the sun. As the moon goes round earth it gets further away from the sun as seen in our sky. At full moon its opposite the sun and ocassionally slips into earth's shadow, giving a lunar eclipse. So between new and full moon the moon tends to be in the evening sky. After full, it gets increasingly further into the morning sky. So, yeah, the moon is almost visible every night for some amount of time. But its also visible in the daytime sky almost as frequently. You'll only see a full moon in a daytime sky as it rises and sets.

Thanks. It took some time getting there! I'm playing with the binning at the moment and that shot was in 1x1 so very sharp. The images binned 2x2 (by the camera) are brighter and a bit prettier, particularly in the timelaps, but don't look so good on larger screens. The stars having distinct discs.