Spaced Out

21 hours ago, Paul M said:

That's smooth!

How many frames per minute was that?

My own allsky camera gathered some great images but I have it set for 30 sec delay because I have the max exposure set to 25 sec, which on a dark night is great for general timelapse. Unfortunately, for the Big Aurora, that was a bit lot too long. The Aurora was so bright that the auto exposure was down to only 2 or 3 seconds, so I could have recorded many more frames = smoother timelapse.

I was too busy watching the display with my eyeballs to even think about tweaking the allsky. 

It's a security camera so shoots 20 frames per second video, I just sped the video up a bit to create a timelapse.

My all-sky camera had a nightmare with changes in brightness so I haven't attempted to make a timelapse but got some crazy stills from it.

1 minute ago, scotty1 said:

Amazing video 

What ISO and FPS ?

I used shutter speed 1/25, aperture f.2 (should have been 1.4 for video but I was so excited I forgot to change it !), ISO 51200 😲.

1 minute ago, scotty1 said:

Sony A7? 

Canon R6 mk2. 

Here in Northumberland we're lucky enough to live under dark skies (sqm-l 21.4). We saw naked eye pinks and greens, the best I've ever seen in the UK. Here's a 'real time' video I took, a local Sedge Warbler was nice company to have for such an event !

Here's a short timelapse from the Aurora Cam Fri/Sat.

Really pleased with the way this cheap security camera is performing so far. 🙂

On 14/02/2024 at 14:17, PeterC65 said:

Nice! It's making me wonder about setting up a sky camera outside.

 

Go for it ! My live stream video and all-sky stills cam were both easy to do and not that expensive. For example, I set up the live stream with an IP security camera that cost £79, I wanted to see how well it worked, if it's ok then I may invest in a better camera later on (I'd love a live stream with a Sony mirrorless camera but they cost £££ !). Low light technology in security cameras seems to be improving every year tho and when a new cam comes out the previous ones drop in price, there's a couple of cheapy IP security cameras around now that claim to be 'star cameras'.

Thanks everyone for the help and tips ! 👍

22 minutes ago, Elp said:

The rings are because you haven't applied flats to the image prior.

All the menu items in the top should be applied after you've gone through the panes on the RHS left to right in terms of calibrating, registering and stacking but you've done all that within DSS prior.

If you don't have your image calibrated, background extraction will do strange things to your image as it's designed to remove gradients which are linear in fashion and not radial like your uncalibrated image is. To use DBE you left click across your image on areas where there is no star or imaged target nebulosity (ie blank space) to leave small red sample squares/points, you also don't want to place points at the very edges when you haven't pre cropped your image as it'll pick up on your stacking edge artifacts due to field movement, place around 20 points around your image in varying areas of background intensity, press compute background to see the calculated image, then press apply to apply and close the dialog box. It helps to have the console tab in view from the RHS pane when processing as you can see what Siril is doing and whether it throws up any error messages. The RBF algorithm generally is the one to use, if calibrating on a per sub basis to a sequence of images (yes you can pre process per sub) you can use order 1 algorithm normally on a per sub dbe process.

It also helps when you've loaded an image in Siril that hasn't been pre processed/stretched to change the image preview mode at the bottom centre from linear to auto stretch or histogram (this doesn't alter the image, just the way it previews), the latter is a good way to quickly assess the faint nebulosity or dust you have imaged in the stack as well as ensuring when doing DBE you're not placing a sample point where you shouldn't be.

This is great ! Thank you for taking the time to write this, it has set me on right track. I will try using it from scratch again with a different image/set of calibration frames. Only ever used it a couple of times before, quite a while ago and then I just dabbled with a couple of things. I'm interested to see what it can do.

2 hours ago, geeklee said:

While I doubt this is causing the tunnel effect - Generally I would move a few of the background points off the very faint tails of M51 just to give you the best chance of proper background (I'm being quite coarse here, you may not need to remove/move the same amount).  If you think your background is quite simple, you could also increase the smoothing.  M51 is looking really good and a nice overall FOV!

Otherwise, just make sure the data is calibrated correctly.  When you've calculated the background, if Siril then has a "Show background" option you can assess what it thinks the gradient is.

I'm sure a Siril expert will be along shortly to help though!

Thanks, it was my first ever attempt at using a SW 250 PDS the other night so it was more of a test session, setting up coma corrector spacing and the guiding etc, no calibration frames taken unfortunately, it's just stack of about 20x 60 sec subs. Could the lack of calibration frames be the issue ?

I will try deleting some of the points as you've suggested and see what happens.

Interestingly, I just restarted Siril to try again and ran into exactly the same issue of the 'compute background' button not working, nothing happens and then the 'apply' button remains greyed out. 🤔

8 minutes ago, geeklee said:

It could be the blind leading the blind here (!) but have you clicked "Compute Background" yet?  

Brilliant ! Thanks. I thought I did but nothing happened. Just restarted and tried it again tho and it has worked ! However, it produced this 🤔 , I'm guessing there is a setting somewhere that I need to work out.

...

The motion detection software got this a couple of nights ago.

On 03/02/2024 at 22:40, Paul M said:

I've got all the components for a RasPi based allsky camera that I'll be siting in rural Cumbria, eventually.

Unfortunately it's delayed due to a family upset and I've not yet been able to collect the RasPi (currently working as an IP camera server up there) to get the project moving.

Your project motivates me to make a quick, sameday dash to get the Pi home, 150 mile round trip, without an evening at the village hostelry to make it worthwhile!!

Sounds good. How did you get on with it ? Love a project !

Hi all

I'm a total newb to Siril, using it for the first time today. Just following a simple processing tutorial on a TIF image (previously stacked using DSS - 16 bit). I've got as far as background extraction and hit a snag, the 'apply' button is greyed out and I can’t work out why. Did a quick google and can't find an answer to this so I thought I'd just ask here. Sure I’m missing something really obvious and will no doubt look foolish, but you've got to start somewhere !

Thanks

13 minutes ago, Craney said:

I think you may have got a cloud to cloud lightning discharge.   Some big storm clouds racing across the North East tonight.

Another application of the cam.

Really ? Wow ! Thanks. 🙂

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

Cracking live vid 👍🏻

Thanks ! It's just an IP security camera but one that performs fairly well in low light.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tapo-Weatherproof-Detection-Starlight-C325WB/dp/B0CB1TGPJG?th=1

I was amazed to see the Milky Way on it the other night, incredible for a 20 frames per second video camera, ok, it was very subtle but it was there ! Here's a timelapse, if you squint and use your imagination you can just about see it....

On 02/02/2024 at 17:01, Andrew INT said:

Thanks - that's another one I can look into! It's currently £79.99 on amazon...

Its not bad for the price, I actually got the Milky Way on mine the other day, incredible for a 20 frames per second security camera ! Here's a timelapse, you'll need to squint but you can just about see it ! 🧐

20 hours ago, Leo S said:

Thanks for the offer, but not to worry - tried the clip in another browser and it worked much better. I agree, it does look like a meteor. Good catch 👍

The motion detection software was triggered again this evening, I presume this is a meteor blazing behind the clouds 🤔.

2 hours ago, Leo S said:

Any chance you could upload the clip elsewhere (vimeo, youtube, for example)?

Some use timers along the lines of these to turn off the camera.

 

I can email it you if you like ? Drop me a DM with your email. 👍

Thanks, I could easily schedule the camera to turn on and off with its own software but I need to leave it on 24/7 as it's a live stream. Its the motion detection software I need to turn on and off, this is possible by adding in some code, just working out how to do it atm but I am not a programmer ! Fairly confident I'll get it sorted tho. 🤞 

This guy on YouTube uses a C325WB with the Contacam software for meteors.

23 hours ago, Leo S said:

 

Thanks for the live feed. Bookmarked

If you want actual software designed for meteors, have a look here, and here. It includes software that analyzes meteors and can work out orbits if footage from another camera is available.

Edit to add: No matter. I see you got your software to work. I'm having trouble viewing the footage, but while it was downloading I could see little bits - it looks like you caught an aircraft, but I could be wrong.

Thanks, I've got the software working OK, just trying to work out how to schedule it to turn off in the daytime !

I think it's meteor, seen a few aircraft on here, they are much slower and they strobe.

19 hours ago, Andrew INT said:

I had been looking at the C310.

I got the C325WB purely for it's low light performance. Hunted around for info on cameras and it seemed to be one of the best IP security cams for under £100 for low light stuff. Wanted to catch auroras with it, so good low light performance and wide angle were the main things.

5 minutes ago, Andrew INT said:

That's perfect, than you. I currently have a dome camera to monitor the telescope, but that can't point upwards without risking water ingress. I had been looking at the C310. Not heard of Contacam - will look it up. Is it free? Also, does it check the video in realtime?

It's donationware, they expect £10 for it, but you can download and use it for free to try it then make a donation if you are happy it does what you need. I'm still testing it atm but I will be making a donation soon I think as I'm impressed with it so far. For example, it picks up small flying birds no problem in the daytime. I am just trying to work out how to schedule it to turn on and off each day so it only monitors at night, in the daytime it is a nightmare with lots of birds triggering it ! Motion triggers are in real time and it can send you notifications via email with either a short video or a gif thumbnail. A couple of thumbnails attached. I like the ability to highlight the trigger with a red box on thumbnail previews (so you can see where the movement is) and also you can mask off areas where you don't want detection, so I only have the sky active to avoid false triggers from swaying tree branches etc. You can also adjust trigger sensitivity.

I am using Contacam software and so far so good but very early days, seems to work tho. You might want to also take a look at this... it got me started.

https://community.tp-link.com/en/smart-home/forum/topic/621130?sortDir=ASC&page=1

Yes, I'm doing it at the moment. See here...

On 30/01/2024 at 18:41, lunator said:

Very nice website.

Hopefully you can catch the aurora and meteors

Cheers

Ian

Thanks !

Second night using the motion detection software last night and it works ! 🙂