Gina's DIY All Sky Cam - Complete Redesign

[JamesF]

I now have oacapture v 0.5.0 imaging with the QHY5.

Excellent

James

[Gina]

I'm afraid I didn't do any imaging last night - very tired and went to bed before it was fully dark - hopefully tonight.

The oacapture software seems a bit too sensitive for daytime use.  Similar to Sharpcap in that respect though lacking the gamma and contrast controls in Sharpcap.  PHD2 works better at these light levels - it can even take sunshine between the clouds.  I don't know if there would be anything you could do to make oacapture better in this respect, James, I know it wasn't designed for this use.  As always I want more

There are raindrops on the dome which the current dew heater is not clearing so I may take another look at that.

Here are a couple of screenshots as it gets gloomier and gloomier this morning.  It's raining again now.

[JamesF]

I wonder if the windows drivers fake up gamma and contrast controls, or if sharpcap does?  The camera doesn't appear to support them itself.  I don't know what PHD can be doing unless it's normalising the histogram or something like that before displaying the image.  Perhaps a look at the openphd code might make that more obvious.

James

[Gina]

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that PHD was open source - good point.  PHD2 has an "auto" exposure mode - pity it doesn't work   For night sky it's not needed as around a minute constant exposure seems fine (until dawn comes).  Pity the Fujinin lens hasn't get a better aperture control.  Of course, if in the future I buy a QHY5L-II-C camera, the exposure goes much lower than the old QHY5 and should be alright.

Have you looked into auto exposure at all James?  I see the word "Auto" appears in the window.  Mind you, I haven't yet investigated all the extras there may be in the new version

[DrRobin]

Looking good Gina, nice to see the Milky Way in the shot.

I have just rebuilt my Night Sky Camera, was going to add a new post, but briefly...

DFK31 (I wanted colour for daytime clouds);

Plastic Enclosure with a perspex dome from Ebay;

AstroVideo, running a script to automate.

During the day the camera runs in auto gain/auto exposure, but come night time, I ramp up to 5s (Gain=650), then 32s (Gain=650) and finally 55s (Gain=800).    The 32s and 55s have dark frame subtraction.  Unfortunately AstroVideo won't change the camera settings so I had to write AutoIT scripts and run them from a schedule.

The new colour USB camera is a great improvement over my older B/W composite video camera and you can see the results here  www.drrobin.co.uk/nightskycamera2.htm  Sadly it went down last night and the script doesn't restart until 5pm tonight, so you are seeing and image from 01:20.

Robin

[JamesF]

Have you looked into auto exposure at all James?  I see the word "Auto" appears in the window.  Mind you, I haven't yet investigated all the extras there may be in the new version

The auto controls are available if the camera supports them and if there's sufficient documentation for me to be able to make them work.  It may be that the sensor supports some sort of autoexposure function but the firmware doesn't provide access to it.  Off the top of my head I don't think the QHY5L-II supports autoexposure, for instance, whereas the ASI120 using the same sensor does.

What's probably required is some sort of facility to allow the camera to capture multiple images until some predetermined exposure level is reached, though that could be quite tricky.

James

[JamesF]

I have just rebuilt my Night Sky Camera, was going to add a new post, but briefly...

DFK31 (I wanted colour for daytime clouds);

Plastic Enclosure with a perspex dome from Ebay;

AstroVideo, running a script to automate.

Looks very neat, Robin

James

[Horwig]

Off the top of my head I don't think the QHY5L-II supports autoexposure, for instance, 

James

Now that's interesting, EZPlanetary IS able to control auto exposure and auto gain with the 5L-II, but can't find any other software that can.

Huw

[JamesF]

If that's the case then it looks like the method it isn't documented anywhere I've looked.

It may be possible to work out how by reverse-engineering what EZP does.

James

[Gina]

Cloud clearing   Sun just gone down behind the trees.

[Gina]

[JamesF]

That last one is starting to look good

James

[Gina]

Getting there - slowly

Tried to capture an AVI file overnight - looked like it started (and finished) but when I looked this morning there was no saved AVI file   So I'll look into that.

One problem I have is that the latest version of TeamViewer for Mac won't work with the latest version for Linux.  Windoze - Linux is fine.  I have a MacBook on my bedroom side table and sometimes wake up in the night and like to look at my imaging machines or controlling imaging.

TBH I'm not that enamoured with Macs - they seem more difficult to use than either Windoze or Linux.  The more I use my MacBook Pro the more I feel inclined to put Linux Mint onto it   I only use it for browsing and TeamViewer anyway.  I used to do a bit of web site design on it as the app I have for that use is multi-platform.  I don't have to reboot the Mac anything like as often as Win 7 so it's definitely better in that respect but it isn't fast.  I think it's an Intel 64bit dual processor so I could bung 64bit Mint straight onto it.

[Davey-T]

Hi Gina, I'm pretty bored with my MBP which I'm trying to use for astro stuff, everything seems to be slower on it, it takes for ever to download stuff using USB3.

Shame your ASC didn't perform last night as there was a really bright meteor at 1.45 going East / West and a couple of minutes later the ISS going in the opposite direction.

Dave

[Gina]

I think mine will be going Mint flavoured pretty soon now

Oh that's just typical   Par for the course...

[DrRobin]

Hi,

I got the ISS, but didn't see the meteor.

http://www.zen81542.zen.co.uk/nightsky2/IMG_0423.JPG

I got the ISS from two nights ago as well.

http://www.zen81542.zen.co.uk/nightsky2/IMG_0422.JPG

Robin

[Davey-T]

Hi Robin, how come you missed the meteor, is your camera time lapse ?

Dave

[DrRobin]

Yeah, one frame every 5 minutes. At that time of night it was a 55 second exposure so a 1 in 5 chance. The camera is fully automated, uploading a new image every 5 minutes, over-writing every 24 hours.

Robin

[Gina]

I use 60s exposure with continuous recording so no gaps (when it's working) makes for big files though.  With the copper wired slo-mo BB here I can't upload it  

[Horwig]

With the copper wired slo-mo BB here  

Same here, pleasures of living in the country Gina.

Not only that, there's a long running fault on my phone at the moment, every time it rains I lose the voice circuit, but the broadband still works, it's got BT (not to say me) confused.

Huw

[Gina]

Ah, the magic of modern comms

[Gina]

Just swapped the IRFZ44N power MOSFETS for IRLZ44N low threshold versions and removed the 5-12v logic converters.  Having a breather then the testing begins

[DrRobin]

I used to get 500kbits/s down link, until Jan of this year when they put fibre broadband in to the village. Now it's 40Mbits/sec down and 20Mbits/sec up, for near enough the same money each month. Now what slows it down is the website you go to. I never thought they would put fibre in to the village, didn't think it would have been worth their while.

[Davey-T]

Think they're trying to respond to unrealistic promises made by those people you're not allowed to mention on the forum who live in a big palace by the Thames. 

Dave

[Gina]

Testing satisfactory   Drain voltages of 16mv and 82mv for dew heater and cooling respectively.  That's rather different - that's how it should be

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