DaveL59

thanks Gina, I'm currently playing with the spare kit I have, being between jobs means limiting the spend somewhat so an astro camera is a bit out of reach for now 😉 Here my back yard is not that big and with a large oak tree to SW of where I might put the camera plus houses at around 20-30 degrees above the level a 150 wide would likely do for me at the mo. Will see how it plays, I've ordered a 2.1 and 1.7mm lens so will have a play and see how they go. Might try a 5MP starvis module later on as they can be had for under £20 now, assuming that the current play rig turns out to be viable...

Hi Gina now wanting to hijack your thread, but this inspired me to get around to picking up the idea I had a long while back but had never got around to it. Since I have a couple spare mini-IP cctv cameras with Sony IMX291 starvis sensors, I bought a dummy dome cctv for a couple £ to test the idea. Fitted up the camera into it and sealed with clear RTV since the clear dome just pushes into the body and fixed it to the pergola by the shed. Not an ideal setup as its only a 2.8mm M12 starlight lens, needs to be 1.7 I think for this to be workable and focus isn't quite right plus the dome isn't optically great hence the abberations in the image, but... it seems to work so far. One concern I've always had is - do you get the sensor burning out with the sun tracking across it? I do have an IRcut filter behind the lens so hopefully that'll help? I know I'll have a problem with the security IR lighting so masked the facing edge of the dome to hopefully reduce that a bit, can't move the IR illuminators unfortunately, so will see how hazy the image turns out tonight I guess. If this all works out then I'll look to order in a wider M12 lens and a proper CCTV dome housing (or camera and strip it to retrofit this camera module). Nothing as professional as your setup but might be a neat cheapo solution for me 🙂