jiberjaber

haha yes Pete, sorry I forgot to answer your question earlier  Yes currently residing in Sunny Essex

So at the moment there isn't any glass  on the camera, just cut up coke bottle plastic though it seems to be OK (at the moment, suspect it wont withstand the first hot and wet cycle due to the duct tape holding it all together!) I've got some camera lenses and holders I might have a fettle with later in the week - I think I might have a 2.8mm lens somewhere in that lot.

I haven't bothered with the 18B20, I was in too much of a rush to get it out into the wild to get the soldering iron out lol. 

I've another 10 mins before it switches to night mode, it's quite exciting.  Image is pretty black at the moment so time to check the polar alignment on the scope ready for tonight

Thanks Pete.  I only changed the day exposure time to suit testing as I couldn't work out what was working with such a long time between events.  I left the night time settings as was.  I've just set them back to 2 mins for daytime and 5 mins for the video.

The about none sensor version doesn't work, its not coming through as an html file, if I copy the about from the sensor version that works, not sure exactly what's wrong there

It's mounted outside now, I had to reposition if as the link wasn't good and the webpage with the image was timing out (oddly though the video page worked!) After a shift of another 1 meter it's much better. I've got a 5m USB hub which I used to use for the telescope back when I did this in 2013, it seems to be working well to power the Pi Zero W.

I've not got a wide angle lens for this and it's the no-ir version so colours are a little off (a blue sky looks like clouds!) but it's out there and working at the moment, will be interesting to see what night looks like from this position!

That lovely blue sky looks quite grey in the camera! Perhaps there is a better AWB setting for the no-ir version? (I couldn't find anything with a quick google)

Thanks Pete, I'm just making a quick 3d print to mount the camera in the end of a coke bottle so I can mount it outside - not the best of solutions but the quickest one I could come up with this afternoon! Next problem is how to get power to it, which might dictate where it gets mounted lol

I've not touched the html files but just puzzled why the time remaining to next image has disappeared, only thing I've altered is the concat and exposure timers - I'll be putting them back shortly so will see if that brings back the info on the web page.

2 minutes ago, Pete6 said:

@jiberjaber,

I think I know why you are seeing errors.  I run my AllSky Camera in root.  It was easier for me to do this and since the device sits up on the roof and was not used to run any other jobs I figured it would be okay with a strong password.  I made some effort not to use root and after three days I failed. Please try running in root and see if this resolves the condition.  It should.  If you really do not like running in root then I can go back and have a another try at the problem.  If you know how to do this then please let me know.

Somewhat a non-answer I know but this is what I did.

Hi Pete, You've done a great job I think it's mostly the instructions that need neatening up to make it easier for others to install (I'm no programmer either, so just debugging what I can )

It is running as root I think as the files it creates (stills & movies) are owned by root.  

I think most of the issues I've got to the bottom of now.  Only thing left to do is solder up a sensor to confirm that is working for me.  The next image in X seconds seems to have totally disappeared since I adjusted the concat and exposure times to make them shorter so I could see what was going on.  I just get a row of black coloured full stops on the image now (I've highlighted them for clarity in the picture below

OK managed to get the movies created I think.  Needed to create a couple of directories 

/home/allsky/pics/day

/home/allsky/pics/night

Just now, DaveL59 said:

getting there, tho the FoV may be a bit narrow unless your sky view is limited by the location/obstructions. How's the night/sky view without the lighting?

Very dark! Though as dawn was happening as I got ready to take down the scope I could see stars, given this is just the standard lens and through a double glazed window I was quite happy about that, unfortunately I didn't save this image but here's a copy of what I posted to facebook this morning... you can just make out a star between the temperature 'C' and the trees. My sky view is limited so a wide FOV might not be worth it.  I might try and put it out on the patio with the scope tonight if I remember.  Certainly has potential - I might look for where the files are deleted and comment that out, there are other ways to manage storage space within linux which might allow a round-robin buffer of images to be present subject to a setting and disk space  

Not sure if anyone is following this, but just in case, I now have the sun times rectified.  The Lat/Lon in the webcam script must be in the exact format specified, that is 2 digits left of the decimal point and 6 digits right of the decimal point then the direction eg: 51.123456N any deviation from this seemed to stop the script from working.

I've reverted back to the with sensor html files as the about page failed with the no sensor files, just need to resolve the lack of seconds till next capture timer now

So I have sort of managed to get this working. I needed to add to the webcam script 'sudo'  to allow the crontab commands to work. Some parts are not functioning but I am able to get an image (using a V2 noir camera)

I am using the no temp sensor html directory version, the about page doesn't work. The errors shown above are also present in the sun times page. (on both versions of html)

I also had to remove the -hf flag to remove the horizontal flip on the camera image. 

This has a lot of potential if I can get the rest of it working it working 👍

I get the following error:

Quote

pi@raspberrypi:/home/allsky $ /home/allsky/webcam
raspistill not running
/home/allsky/webcam: line 269: [: too many arguments
/home/allsky/webcam: line 273: [: too many arguments
/usr/bin/raspistill

E V E N T                                      HH:MM OFFSET
---------------------------------------------  ----- ------
Astronomical Rise (18 degrees below horizon):  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 01:41 -00:10
Astronomical Rise (Real)                    :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 01:51
Nautical Rise (12 degrees below horizon)    :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 03:18 -00:10
Nautical Rise (Real)                        :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 03:28
Civil Rise (6 degrees below horizon)        :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 04:17 -00:10
Civil Rise (Real)                           :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 04:27
CAMERA switches from Night to Day           :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 04:19 -00:08
VIDEO switches from Night to Day            :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 04:24 -00:03
Sunrise (0 degrees below horizon)           :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 05:08 00:00
Sunrise (Real)                              :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 05:08
Sunset (0 degrees below horizon)            :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 20:52 00:00
Sunset (Real)                               :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 20:52
Civil Set (6 degrees below horizon)         :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 21:32 -00:00
Civil Set (Real)                            :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 21:32
CAMERA switches from Day to Night           :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 21:41 -00:09
VIDEO switches from Day to Night            :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 21:44 -00:12
Nautical Set (12 degrees below horizon)     :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 22:32 -00:00
Nautical Set (Real)                         :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 22:32
Astronomical Set (18 degrees below horizon) :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 00:09 -00:00
Astronomical Set (Real)                     :  Error: Unknown command-line argument: 0.47527778 Error: Unknown command-line argument: 51.71972222 00:09
==== AUTHENTICATING FOR org.freedesktop.systemd1.manage-units ===
Authentication is required to stop 'cron.service'.
Multiple identities can be used for authentication:
 1.  ,,, (pi)
 2.  root
Choose identity to authenticate as (1-2): 1
Password:
==== AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE ===
rm: cannot remove '/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root': Permission denied
cp: failed to access '/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root': Permission denied
chmod: cannot access '/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root': Permission denied
==== AUTHENTICATING FOR org.freedesktop.systemd1.manage-units ===
Authentication is required to start 'cron.service'.
Multiple identities can be used for authentication:
 1.  ,,, (pi)
 2.  root
Choose identity to authenticate as (1-2): 1
Password:
==== AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE ===
Wed 13 May 20:43:24 BST 2020
 

Right - I've found the  Raspbery\ Pi\ AllSky\ Camera.txt file which has better instructions in it, I was going off the instructions in the git page, just editing the webcam file now

Hi Pete, Just going through your instructions to give this a try, couple of points I noted whilst running through the instructions and actions  

Could do with updating the formatting of the instructions, some of the commands to be executed are hidden in the instructions so might be hard for others to pull out what to do

Seems to be missing a few steps?

- I couldn't get the php test to work, I just get 404, perhaps it needs to be in the html directory?

- How to copy your files to the PI (git clone.... etc), and a few other commands required;

- copy webcam to /etc/init.d, also;

- some roge commands which don't seem to do anything (sudo chmod 755 /home/allsky/.sh )

- cp /home/allsky/sunwait/sunwait /usr/bin needs sudo in front of it

- I couldn't see which file I need to edit to change the sunwait location etc

I've got to the stage where I've rebooted and loaded the all-sky camera page but after 10 no images....  I think I might have found the problem, you have cron files but no instructions on what to put where?

4 minutes ago, Tomatobro said:

see microbe's post rowan belt mod.....same problem I think

I just looked back to a photo I took when I installed the belt, no touching of the teeth but I will adjust the motor pinion position relative to the idler just in case when the new belt arrives.  The thread does mention damage due to excessive tension so will double check the belt tension when fitting it with that on the DEC motor.  Has anyone got an actual measurement of belt deflection ?

Yep - same tension in the DEC belt which seems to be OK. I'll certainly be keeping an eye on the new belt when fitted!

Fitted this upgrade to my mount a few weeks ago and all seemed to be going OK apart from my guiding was getting worse on one side of the pier than the other.  All went well with the upgrade and but last night I suffered really badly from elongated stars in my images so decided to investigate as I noticed some noise from the motor gearbox when I was parking the scope last night. I was expecting the issue to be something about balance or worm drive mesh as all was good guiding towards the North (M51) and the issue was on the other side of the pier when guiding to the South (M65).

After checking for backlash in the RA & DEC (though PHD2 indicated it was RA the issue might be in) I would check the belts and here was the sight upon removing the cover:

That explains the noise when parking, the belt had ridden up and the only thing stopping it from coming off was the cover over the motorbox area!

Belt appears pretty ruined, new one ordered from @FLO 

I've flipped and refitted the belt, it works but there is noise in rotation and it is trying to slide down the sprockets now rather than up them.

It's not good and needs replacing, problem is I don't want to ruin another belt but I can't see what I did wrong here, the sprockets are all aligned but the belt still rode up and deformed.  Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

On 08/05/2020 at 19:17, vineyard said:

That is a brilliant video - v funnily put together too.  And I'm really happy where it ends b/c I also recently picked up a belted HEQ5Pro from a fellow SGLer!  And am absolutely loving it for AP.  Have got it humming (by my newbie standards that is!) with a little 72ED - have figured out via tips from other SGLers I need a different camera for the 4" (sampling).  And if lockdown ever ends and the ATM classes begin again, am working on a little 6" reflector

If only I could get my old DSLR to work while connected to a laptop now...

Brilliant video @rorymultistorey& thanks @Stufor sharing that!

Not sure which DSLR you have but have you looked at the Indi stack running under linux? (Astroberry is a good starting point on a Raspberry Pi as an example, or even on a linux distro second booted on your laptop?)

I hadn't considered the thermal currents aspect when I built mine years ago but through some experimentation at the time I came across a figure of 20(ish) degrees above the dew point seemed to be right for my equipment to keep the dew off, that's a temperature measured in the actual dew strap, the temperature near the optics will be quite different as this is wrapped around an alu dew shield plus loss of the actual dew band outer material - perhaps leaving it at 5 degrees above DP at a guess.

Without a controller of some sort it would be hard to adjust it relative to the actual DP at that time, some will be fully automated (like mine measuring ambient temp & humidity to get to DP and then adjusting the measured temperature in the dew band to something) or just a dial to change the output and through experimentation you can set it to keep the dew at bay.

If you don't have a controller then notwithstanding the above notes on potential effect on optics, you are also just wasting energy, which might be a consideration if you are running off batteries perhaps.. 

Thanks PI here too though given it's such a long time since I used it I'm back on using youtube to assist too LOL

Mines on a 80 so probably explains the difference in IQ.

Great shot  

That's great, I've got about 16 hours of data from my D7500 and sliming that down to the better frames (13hrs) I'm struggling to get near that, would love to know more details.... scope/software/crop etc?

That's great - as a thought you could upload the resultant video to a google drive and then link back to that from the web page to take some of the load off the Pi perhaps?

Idea came from here:  https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneyeos/wiki/Features

Yep - I'd certainly be interested, I've not made anything earth shaking but a few 'daft' things like spacers that are bolted on the dovetail to speed up putting the scope on in the right balance point, ditto for counter weight position.  I have also scaled other users masks for my finderscope which worked well.. so plenty out there (my current interest would be something to facilitate the park position location other than a couple of sharpie lines on the mount )

I've just had a quick look at mine and it is screwed quite far in to the body on it's adaptor.

16 minutes ago, knobby said:

It's weird isn't it ... Several different answers on web, mine is a bit heath Robinson with some bits hammered in and not screwed but when I plate solved it came back as 181mm. Maybe some are different ?

How did you get the FL from just the plate solve, was it a web site?   It would be useful to give it a try to compare

On 13/10/2019 at 00:51, knobby said:

Old thread I know but the skywatcher finder guider platesolves to 181 mm 👍

Which backs up the above.

I get a different number from my calcs

Rearanging the formula from https://www.lightvortexastronomy.com/tutorial-pre-processing-calibrating-and-stacking-images-in-pixinsight.html

[Arcseconds Per Pixel] = (206.2648 x [Camera Pixel Size in μm]) / [Telescope Focal Length in mm]

FL = 206.265 * (pitch/fov)

Using Astrometry.net and a capture from my finderscope with QHY5-II mono fitted.

http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/3619149#original

I get FOV 4.39 arcsec/pixel and the specs say the pitch is 3.75um so the resultant FL is 176.2mm 

Sample of 1 image of course!

Maybe the difference is in the mounting of the camera or focus? On my SW finder I have unscrewed the eyepiece and replaced it directly with the camera.

Welcome back

On 05/02/2019 at 17:43, FenTaylor said:

Thanks to everyone who answered this topic.

It seems my problem is solved without buying a new motherboard. Unfortunately, I have little knowledge of electronics and could not solve the problem myself. But any master who has electronic skills is able to check which item has failed and repair (or replace) it. I found such a master, it was not difficult for him to repair the board.

I'll write that need to be repaired (in my case) to help those who have the same problem. Then I write on behalf of a friend.

Suspicions were confirmed. Broke inductor on the board. If more precisely - оne winding broke and both windings from the side of the board caused short circuits to each other. The photograph from the microscope shows in more detail how one wire melted and broke, and melted the enamel of the neighboring winding and made a short circuit with it.

The inductor has been replaced with a resettable fuse (2A) and the motherboard is resurrected, but the board still did not work with my hand control tube (the test showed that it works with others). It became clear that the hand tube is also broken.

Thankyou! You just saved me having to buy a new board! I've replaced the inductor with two bits of wire for now and my mount is back in to life   I wasn't sure it was going to work but glad to report it does! Will add a resettable fuse later when the world is more back to normal!

It's a bit late now to set up and get some images though I was tempted to pull the gear out and do so! 

Once again- Thanks!