Gina's DIY All Sky Cam - Complete Redesign

[Gina]

ASC now back in place on the obsy roof and it's now raining.  The shutter/aperture seems to be stuck fully open so I'll have that to check out tomorrow when the rain clears.  Probably something simple   Anyway the cooling and dew heater are working

[DrRobin]

Same here, completely overcast and he odd spot of rain. Still supposed to be clear tomorrow night.

[Gina]

Steady moderate rain here but yes, forecast clear for tomorrow night.

Now have AVI recording working in oacapture.  Another step forward   Don't need clear skies for testing

Without the volt drop across the MOSFET I was hoping for more power to the dew heater but this hasn't resulted in a higher dome temperature above ambient, at least not tonight.  I think the heating might be sufficient for clearing dew but if I want to clear raindrops off it will need more.

[Gina]

Without rain the dome temperature reached 13C above ambient so a bit more heating as expected.  I might see about either more heating or some other method of drying off but I'll leave it for now as I want to get on with other things.

The problem with the aperture control was loose pinion on the servo shaft so I've tightened up the fixing screw.  If it comes loose again I'll have to glue it on or something.

[Gina]

Aperture control working again

[Gina]

Cooling and Dew Heater ON.

[Gina]

Some clear sky and some cloud.

[Gina]

Cooling is working exceptionally well but the dew heater seems to be struggling to heat the dome very much.  No dew though so it's enough ATM   Moon can be seen SE.  Aperture still in daytime mode.

[Gina]

Change to wide open aperture for night use.

[Gina]

Now set up for an overnight AVI run using oacapture.  With great patience I managed to get AVI time limit set to 18000s (5 hrs) and exposure to about 60s with gain on 4.  (Note to James, do you think you could arrange a user interrupt so that changes could be made while an exposure is taking place, please?  Not a problem with short exposures but gets a bit annoying above 10s. )

Now off to bed - see y'all next month

[Gina]

The 5hr overnight AVI capture worked fine but cloudy all the time.  Occasional clearer spells but still thick enough to obscure most of the stars.  Forecast wet for tonight

[Gina]

This evening's view - cloud and rain   With the cooling off, the dew heater is warming the dome by a good 13C above ambient   Not enough to boil the rain off though

[DrRobin]

Same here Gina.

http://www.drrobin.co.uk/nightskycamera2.htm

[Gina]

Having bought a QHY5L-II-C camera to replace the old QHY5 and with the moon in the FOV all night plus cloud for several nights to come, I see no future in this present version of my all sky camera. 

ASC construction will continue in my new thread Gina's DIY All Sky Camera - Mark3 - with QHY5L-II-C