AngryDonkey

Not when using an off axis guider. The loss of focus messes up the guiding.

Thanks Rowland that was really useful!

Hi Gina, I printed my housing with 4mm wall thickness and 100% infill in PETG. Did extensive testing on waterproofness (i.e. drown in bucket for numerous days) and all was well 🙂

Hello! A new preview version is now available on the AllSkEye website. The main additions are: Multiple ‘Latest Images’ Multiple Text Overlays Native support for Altair Cameras Output Video Scaling Full details are here: AllSkEye New Preview 0.9.14.1 - Details Mike

Love the images. This thing is a monster!!! 🤣

... or you could buy that Avalon Linear that's been on ABS for a while now (not mine, I just feel a bit sorry fo it...). Second hand, slightly over budget but not by much. Excellent mount, well mine certainly is.

You've obviously got your heart set on something already but don't let that cloud your judgement. 'Confirmation bias' is a dangerous thing, I've been there 🤣 The big question really is, what else can you get for the same money? From your posts I can't tell if you have fully investigated that avenue but I am sure there are mount and (multiple) scope combinations that could give you similar or even better results (at a similar price) and also provide more flexibility for the future. As has been mentioned above, to start with I would invest in a really good equatorial mount with decent capacity. Once you have that you can build things up slowly and change things around without too much frustration and financial outlay.

Been following your thread with interest!

Thank you! Yes for now I'm pretty happy, working on the next project 😂 Sorry no spare housings, I had planned to have a spare but due to user error (turned off the bed heating on my 3D printer during the print by mistake) it came loose and was knocked off the printer. Of course the 3D printer does not realise this and happily continues to print into thin air.... plastic spaghetti... 🤣. It takes about 40h to print it so I decided one was enough...

After some fiddling with settings and focus the results were really amazing (compared to what I managed to produce before): Here is a sample video of an entire night: I’ve also managed to capture a few nice meteors since. Here is a big one:

Location / Installation I was really happy that I got such a positive response from Jose Luis at the e-EyE remote hosting facility in Extremadura, Spain! The location is perfect for my needs with low light pollution, clear skies and a fast, fibreoptic connected internet connection. It’s also pretty easy to get to from the main hubs in Europe, which was another consideration as I wanted to go there personally to install it. After all the preparations were completed, I booked a little ‘holiday’ directly at e-Eye. They do have some fantastic facilities with really nice Bungalows, a swimming pool and beautiful surroundings so I decided to stay for three nights to relax! I was really glad I did as it was very peaceful and quiet (no kids - mine I mean 😀), just what I needed! Once I got there, the team was extremely helpful in getting me up and running and we manage to fix the housing to the control room roof of the new remote hosting complex in no time. The control box was stationed inside the control room and from there it was pretty much plug and play.

I am hoping that the combined heat from the camera and dew heater will keep the top part dew and moisture free. To be on the safe side I've also treated all connections with CorrosionX HD so in theory everything should work underwater 😂. It feels odd though to spray that stuff into the USB ports but apparently it's an excellent conductor (on touching metals) as well as a very strong insulator. Figure that one out, clever stuff!

And onwards to the control box: Control Box For my control box I reused an old PC housing which I still had kicking around, probably from the last century… Here I needed to find space for: The Intel NUC PC A 12V Power supply A 12V to 19V converter to supply the NUC with 19V A relay control box to do all the switching (heater, fan ,focus, reset NUC, reset network switch) – for this I selected a Lunatico Dragonfly controller A network switch to distribute the LAN network A USB switch to allow physical on/off switching of the USB cable to the camera (to reset the camera should it lock up) External connections: USB hub to connect cameras Ethernet port to connect LAN 9 core cable connector for camera housing supply and switching 220V Power supply This was the final layout: I also decided to add a small UPS which supplies the power for the control box and gives around 5 to 10 minutes of operation. It’s also linked to the NUC via a USB cable and will trigger a shutdown if the battery runs out. Dragonfly The Dragonfly control box was a bit of a ‘luxury item’ as I could have done the same with a much cheaper USB or UDP relay board (eventually I think I will swap the Dragonfly out and put it to better use, hopefully for my own remote scope setup ). It is very convenient though as you can reach it directly from anywhere with an internet connection which is of great help if there are issues with the other components (PC, IP Switch, etc.). Already I’ve used it a couple of times to reboot the PC after some dubious Windows updates where the PC would not respond to Teamviewer anymore. The Dragonfly is also becoming much smarter with every update. You can run internal scripts as well as internal macros which are ideal for watcher functions such as reboot the switch or PC if no internet connection for x seconds and such like. Clever piece of kit! PC / Software The PC is a small form factor Intel NUC i5 machine which is more than capable of running the whole setup and has plenty of connectivity to make everything work. On the USB side I also included a Yepkit USB switchable hub which basically allows you to remotely switch a USB connection as if you had physically unplugged the cable. I though this might come in useful if the camera/USB connection locks up which mostly requires unplugging of the device. In practice I’ve not ever actually needed it so far which I guess is a good thing! Better safe than sorry. For PC remote control I am using Teamviewer which seems to work pretty well and is reasonably fast (as well as free!). The camera is of course run by the latest preview build of AllSkEye ! Luckily the internet connection is fast, so uploading the latest images to my, as well as the e-Eye website via ftp is no problem at all. All other files are kept locally at the moment but I do have plans to export original fits files for further processing and archiving at some point. AllSkEye is also controlling the fan and heater inside the camera. This is done via the AllSkEye trigger mechanism and scripts that are called when certain conditions occur. At the time of writing only the cooling fan is seeing some action. It’s pretty hot during the day and with the greenhouse effect the camera sometimes reaches close to 60 degrees C… Once the winter and/or bad weather arrives I will need to find good trigger points in temperature and humidity to hopefully keep the camera dome dew and frost free. Time will tell!

Not far from the truth, I did consider something like this! 😂 But turned out too complex and I was worried that it would leave streaks. A skilled worker with a cloth seems more reliable...

A bit more 😀: Lens and Camera Assembly / Heater / Focus Mechanism In the final design the camera is screwed into a bottom assembly plate which also encloses the camera with four pillars. On top of these pillars sits the heating element holder. The lens is loosely screwed into the camera end thread which allows the focus motor to move it. The camera (ASI 178MC) and lens (Fujinon 1.8mm f/1.8 Fisheye) combination produces a good field of view. It doesn’t quite give a full 180-degree circle but uses the available sensor area pretty well (and leaves some space for the text and logo overlay). Heating / Cooling / De-Misting The heating element was purchased from dewcontrol.com. Having a heating circle seems like a good idea as the heat is dissipated evenly to the dome. I wanted to get the heating element as close as possible, preferably into the dome but discovered that the Fujinon lens was just a little bit too big and it wouldn’t slide over it. So I had to come up with a heating element holder to position the heater in between the camera and the lens. As the dome is fairly small I think this will work well and also ensure that the lens is warmed as well. I wasn’t sure whether I needed any cooling or de-misting mechanism but to be on the safe side I decided to install a small 12V PC fan in any case. The fan draws air from the bottom of the housing and blows it through a small duct past the heating element towards the dome. The housing has small ventilation holes at the very top which will hopefully allow some of the air to escape and produce a small airflow through the dome. Focus Mechanism I was really in two minds whether to include a remote focus mechanism or not i.e. functionality vs. complexity. With hindsight both came true… It is super convenient to focus the lens and works really well but unfortunately it also seems to have a slight problem in that very occasionally it seems to drift just a tiny bit and needs refocusing. It didn’t do that during testing… Anyhow, I’m sure I will get to the bottom of it eventually, certainly on my next visit to e-Eye The focus mechanism consists of two 3D printed gears, one around the lend shaft, the other on a vertical DC motor shaft. There is also a small spring mechanism to push the gears together and prevent the lens from being too loose. This introduces a slight bit of tilt which isn’t very noticeable though. The control mechanism is a very simple turn this way, turn the other way mechanism by changing the polarity of the 12V supply. Connections On the camera side there are two waterproof connectors: USB 9 Core Cable To further protect the connectors from the elements and to prevent bug ingress through the ventilation slits I also added a mesh and bottom lid:

Yes, I know exactly what you mean! It the same in the middle east... Problem here is you get a fine for a dirty car 😀. Yes it will definitely need some elbow grease to keep it clean, I will beg the guys at e-EyE to do it once a month.

It fits in a trailer, does that count? http://www.cruxis.com/scope/scope1070.htm

Forgot to add that as I’m not really setup to print ABS so I decided to print all parts open to the elements in PETG (which was surprisingly easy to print!). This should hopefully provide good protection from the elements as well as sunlight. All internal parts were printed in PLA. Dome I initially was going to use a spare Starlight Xpress Oculus dome for the setup however pretty much last minute I decided to replace it with a real glass (BK7) dome from Knight Optical in the UK. That was an expensive decision but I think it was worth it. Especially under bright conditions (e.g. moonlight) the glass dome has much less scatter compared to the Perspex dome. I was also hoping it would last longer and stay cleaner but only time will tell. I did treat it with a nano coating so rain would pearl off easily, hopefully that will help as well. Funny enough (or as expected) it doesn’t rain often, which is obviously great but I think is a bit of a disadvantage in terms of keeping it clean. One small challenge in changing to the glass dome was that the dome does not come with a lip i.e. it’s a perfect half sphere. So I had to modify the clamping ring to very exact measurements (slightly smaller than the dome diameter) to ensure that the ring would push the dome onto the gasket without the dome slipping out at the top. I also didn’t want it too high as not to loose the 180 degree visibility.

Well it's been some time 😀! Finally I have some time to write something down and good news is that the camera system is up and running and working well! In the end this is the concept I went with: Camera Housing Components: ASI ZWO 178MC Fujinon 1.8mm f/1.8 Fisheye lens (HF1.8HB-L1) 'Dewcontrol.com' all sky camera heating element 50mm PC Fan Waterproof USB connection Waterproof 9 Core cable connection Knight Optical BK7 glass dome 12V DC Focus Motor Control box components: 220V to 12V DC Transfomer 12V to 19V step up converter for Intel NUC power supply Intel NUC i5 mini PC Lunatico Dragonfly controller Yepkit USB switchable hub Netgear ProSafe managed Switch Camera Housing: To be able to prototype and create the housing I finally had to bite the bullet and buy a 3D printer… I decided to go for a Creality CR10s Pro which was reasonably priced (even including all the upgrades and small fixes it needed to become a decent printer ) and had a large enough print area. After brushing up on (the excellent and free) Fusion 360 I created the following concept: A solid main body which can be permanently attached to the mounting point A dome with compression ‘ring/lid’ to push the dome onto a rubber gasket and provide a waterproof seal. A lip on the top of the main body slightly raised into the dome provides additional protection should any water seep through. A removable assembly which ‘hangs’ inside the main body and contains all internal parts (camera, lens, heater, focus mechanism, fan, connectors). This can be easily slid out from the main body for maintenance by turning the assembly until the support beams reach a gap in the support ring. It also has three adjustment screws which can be used to level and adjust the height of the assembly inside the main body. A bottom lid which acts as protection from underneath and shields the connectors from the elements. It’s also used to fix the hanging assembly in place. After a lot of trial and error, test prints and changes this was the final result: More to follow soon...

Very nice! Glad it's working for you!

I think hat it only really makes sense if you are imaging with both scopes at the same time. Otherwise I would keep it as is.

A.E. Pessimal will not allow it! 🤣

Has this not been discussed before? 🤣

This is my all sky setup also with an ASI 178 camera (colour): https://www.allskeye.com/allskeye-live/ The lens is a Fujinon 1.8mm f/1.8 Fisheye lens. Mike

Hi Ian, Yes there are plenty of lenses that will work with the ASI cameras. There is an Allsky camera facebook group where this is regularly discussed: https://www.facebook.com/groups/172438633343696/ Yes binning 2x2 will reduce the file size, download and processing speeds but at the resolution of the ASI 120 I wouldn't recommend it as you will loose a lot of detail (not sure if it improved USB stability). The only time I have used binning in the past was for dedicated meteor detection with short exposure times (e.g. 5s). I will investigate this, might be a problem with he software! Yes, when you activate meteor detection you can set it to save the detection image and also the original fits file (this function is independent from the other functions like the latest image or image conversions for video creation). Yes, the meteor detection algorithm has settings to suppress airplane trails. Kind Regards, Mike