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Gina's DIY All Sky Cam - Complete Redesign


Gina

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I know :D  I'm waiting with bated breath too hoping that the shutter will open when it gets dark enough :D  No change yet...

Trouble is, it gets dark so late these days :(

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Just been out to the obsy and measured the current and the shutter should have opened but it hasn't so I've got to strip it down again and see what the matter is,

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Yers - but how many when the stars are showing?  That's the problem.

Disconnected the cables and unthreaded them from the holes in the warm room wall, unscrewed pole bracket from obsy corner post and brought it all indoors.  Took unit off pole so that I could get it horizontal, undid screws and removed top to see the meter coil, connected up to my bench PSU and checked for coil/shutter movement and it's fine!

So why won't it work outdoors????????????????????????????

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I might just poke it out through one of the living room windows and have the laptop indoors.  At least that would save me from setting it up, bringing it in, ad infinitum! :D

Just checked the forecast - this is the last night of clear skies for several days :(

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Found the problem the - the lens shutter was closed :(  The clamp screw must have worked loose and the lever slipped over to the closed position!!! AARRGGHH  Working now.  So I guess my shutter was working after all :D

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Working OK now :)  I have the ASC on it's pole poked out of the window and tied to a radiator to hold it in place.  Can't reach the focus knob so the image is out of focus. 

Here is a 60s exposure in SharpCap.  The gradient is cured as can be seen :)  Another step forward - must be thankful for that :D

post-13131-0-72314500-1428528195_thumb.j

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Brought pole down to floor and that enabled me to get to the focussing knob and focus on a bright star :)

Here is another 60s capture from this position.  This is simply a screenshot of the SharpCap window via Team Viewer and has had no post-processing of any sort. The Plough is clearly visible near the middle of the frame :)

post-13131-0-08999700-1428529169_thumb.j

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I've now moved the camera to the south side window.  Exposure 45s - screenshot via TeamViewer.

post-13131-0-08603200-1428531212_thumb.j

For some reason the picture on here is quite a bit worse than the image I posted :(  Unfortunately, ATM I can't get SharpCap to save images.  As soon as I try it crashes :(

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Here's another pic, this time using PHD2 at it's maximum exposure of 15s, saved as FIT file and imported into Photoshop and fiddled with.  Saved in PNG format.

post-13131-0-71353600-1428532405_thumb.p

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Is the image flipped horizontally, Gina?  I reckon the brightest object (about a third in from the left) should be Jupiter, with Leo below it and slightly to the right, but that would suggest that Leo is somehow inverted?

(Assuming I have it right, the bright star at the top is Capella, and the pair at around half ten are Castor and Pollux with Procyon just below them and close to the left edge.)

James

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You know, I think it is.  I'm having a problem matching up the lights on the ground to the south - they seem the wrong way round.  I've had that problem with images before - I thought it was DSS but I'm not using that here - there are single images.

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Flipped and rotated to put south at the bottom, north top, east left and west right.  And here's another capture as well.  That's the lot for tonight.  Got cold with the window open and time for bed :D

post-13131-0-36055100-1428534526_thumb.ppost-13131-0-81707400-1428534556_thumb.p

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Thank you Huw :)  Yes, I'm pleased with last night's images - the clarity was better last night than it has been lately too, more stars visible "with the no.1 eyeball" :)  Not as many stars showing in the images though but IMO pretty good for a relatively cheap camera. 

Now I need to sort out some better software.  I'm sure there's more yet to be squeezed out of the QHY5.  PHD2 is good for saving quality images but is limited to 15s exposure.  SharpCap gives much longer exposures and also provides stacking up to 10 subs as I recall but fails to save for me.  Both apps refuse to run for long periods and stop with an error sooner or later.

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more stars visible "with the no.1 eyeball" :)

If we ever have a problem of deciding what we would be best to worship (not a word I normally like in any sense of the meaning), it must surely be the eye B)

Now I need to sort out some better software.

Maybe speak nicely to James, you never know ! ;)

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