Gina's DIY All Sky Cam - Complete Redesign

[Cath]

I doubt it   I was just connecting up for another test when the cat pulled the whole lot off the table   Now I have to strip it down again and see what's broken because it isn't working

oh dear

Cats do have a habbit of having the odd accident it wud seem ..

Youtube link

[Davey-T]

Get caught up in the cat 5 cables.

Dave

[Gina]

ha ha - not quite   2 USB and one power.

[Gina]

The lens came out of the camera housing stripping the threads (OK I know plastic is not the best for fine threads ).  Anyway I put it back and applied a blob of hot melt glue to hold it.  Maybe I will make an aluminium housing .  The camera is now working but the remote focus isn't   The computer recognises the Arduino but mothing noves   I've manually adjusted focus for now and stuck the lot out of the window.  I'll probably bring it back in later when I've recovered a bit and try to fix it

[tekkydave]

Gina, does your cat know how to write Ascom Focuser drivers at all?

[Gina]

I don't think she's too good at construction   Now destruction... that's a different matter

I've got the focuser working but can't reach focus - guess something must have moved   I'm not having much luck today

In it comes again...  At least I don't have to go outside to bring it in

[Gina]

Fixed it!  Wire caught in the focus gears

[Gina]

Working   No dome as I planned from last night and the stars are very much better.

[Horwig]

That's looking very crisp indeed Gina, very nice.

Huw

[Gina]

Put my new dome on and back out of the window.  This dome is much better than the old one   I need to refocus slightly due to the curvature and refractive index of the acrylic.

[Gina]

Adjusted focus   Here's a screenshot from SharpCap.  60s gain=50.  Can only seem to be able to save AVI files in SharpCap.

[Gina]

A successful AVI capture of 5 hours from 12:15 finishing with the dawn this morning.  Frame exposures were 60s with a gain of 50 - file size 375MB.  Here's a screenshot from just before dawn which, I think, shows The Milky Way.  At first I thought it was cloud but thought it strange that in moved with the stars whereas cloud moves with the Earth

[Horwig]

Gosh! first all sky milky way of the season, very nice indeed.

H

[JamesF]

I'm fairly certain that's the Milky Way.  The image is north down (reflected rather than rotated, I think) which makes some things a bit harder to recognise, but I'm fairly sure the bright star at nine o'clock about a third of the way from the centre is Lyra, and there's the central cross of Cynus just below and to the left of it.

James

[Gina]

Thanks folks   Yes, forgot to mention the image is upside down I'll flip it in PS and repost   I was surprised at how well it's come out - the sky seems to be clearing now after a rather murky period

Yer tiz   Flipped and cropped to remove upside down text etc.

[Cath]

I feel HD coming on at some point

Time to dig deeper into the purse for that better lens lol

[Horwig]

Yes indeed very clear skies last night, actually put it to some good use, Markarian's chain Mk II with my new qsi camera on its way. The one I did on the 18th was pants. I'd made an adaptor for my pentax lens from a cheap pentax to canon adaptor from ebay, it sagged under the weight.

Live and learn, spent the day on the lathe yesterday making a new adaptor from a genuine pentax extension tube, no sag any more, rock solid.

Back to trying to sort my ASC today

Huw

[Gina]

I'm happy this morning   After a very frustrating evening yesterday the results are starting to come through.  My spirits were lifted this morning when I played back the AVI file and saw The Milky Way - the sky has been rubbish for a week or two lately here.  The QHY5 is beginning to look pretty promising   I was almost on the point of knocking this project on the head last night

There is no dew heater ATM and I feel I was very lucky not to get fogged out by dew.  I'm hoping to add some resistors around the bottom of the dome today - I'll add power MOSFET control as well while I'm at it, don't want heat when it isn't necessary.  I'm also considering a modicum of cooling for the camera chamber as well - I would like to reduce the dark noise more if I can.

[Horwig]

Yes, same here, no dew last night at all. I left SGP looking after the kit, and went to bed about one in the morning, got up at five to shut it down, and realised I'd forgotten to switch on the dew heater, but the lens was clear, and all the subs looked good.

Going to see if the pci USB card does anything at all.

H

[Gina]

Been out tonight and just got set up with the camera mounted on the obsy.  Working but the focus has drifted off and I can't get the remote focuser to work   I'm afraid I'm not bringing it back indoors at this time of night so the overnight AVI will have to be a bit out of focus   Pity because the sky is very clear again tonight.

[leelee970]

Still looking good Gina, well done and keep going.

Lee

[Gina]

Thank you Lee    I shall indeed keep going

Last night's AVI captured fine, yes focus a bit out but well clear enough to show some clouds moving across the sky and aircraft trails but no Lyrids seen.  The Milky Way showed well enough for a couple of hours before dawn.

[Gina]

Camera and pole back indoors now and stripped down again

Several things I want to look at :-

1. I have the focuser to sort out - no doubt something silly
2. The shutter wants a stop at the closed position as the meter movement seems reluctant to keep the "zero" position.  The open position already has the casing as a stop.
3. Now have the resistors for the dew heater, so have those to mount and connect up.
4. A more secure mounting for the lens would be in order.
5. I want to look into cooling the QHY5 PCB enclosure.

Regarding item 4. I was thinking of turning the upper part of the camera casing from aluminium with a C mount threaded hole in the top but then it occurred to me that a C mount adapter might not cost much and save me the thread cutting.  I've ordered one for a few quid.

[Gina]

The focuser problem was indeed something silly   There's a link on the stepper driver that I thought was to disable the LEDs but, in fact, it disables the whole device   Whatever is the point of that???   So the link's back on and the LEDs covered with black insulation tape

The shutter now has a stop for the closed position.

Dew heater resistors connected together and glued onto the inside of the dome tube.

[Gina]

With the camera on the table everything is working as expected but when I put it out of the window to look at the night sky it isn't   I seem to get this problem every night