best camera for all sky use

[tdnicholls]

It does eat some CPU when open I will admit, maxs out my i5 NUC with 3 CCTV cameras and the allsky if I have it open, parked to the task bar its not to bad.

I access it either via a web browser of the iPhone app and also drop the frame rates for all cameras as displaying at 30fps kills a system.

[Horwig]

Thanks again Trevor, I'll play some more tomorrow.

Huw

[aruangra]

I set fps to about 0.2sec. (one frame in every 5sec). I also have Skychart in another channel. The cpu load is 25% max on a quad core Atom pc (Minix Z64) with 32bit win 8.1. I use Teamviewer for remote control. My usb cable is 6m long. I never have any stability issue. It runs for several weeks already.

I guess Ezplanetary is stable on 32bit os.

Anat

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Horwig]

I set fps to about 0.2sec. (one frame in every 5sec). I also have Skychart in another channel. The cpu load is 25% max on a quad core Atom pc (Minix Z64) with 32bit win 8.1. I use Teamviewer for remote control. My usb cable is 6m long. I never have any stability issue. It runs for several weeks already. I guess Ezplanetary is stable on 32bit os. Anat Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks, my usffpc is a single atom 230 at 1.6G, and it's struggling. But I've tried Teamviewer this morning, and so far it's stable. EZP takes about 50% of the cpu, with teamviewer taking up most of what's left, but so far it's not tripped up EZP like Remote Desktop did.

The view is Teamviewer is not as smooth and immediate as Remote desktop, but for this application it's not that important. It's also taking up more resources on the house pc, but again not important. The imaging pc is out of the equation. Will use remote desktop to connect to that as before.

The obsy is going to get quite crowded, need to work out where all the new kit's going to live.

At the moment it's all working indoors, but I'll take it out this afternoon if it stays stable, and the rain keeps away.

Huw

[tdnicholls]

There is a setting within Blue Iris that limits the frame rate when accessing by RDP which should help. Out currently so can't check exactly where.

[Horwig]

EZPlanetary and Teamviewer have proved to be nice and stable since yesterday, I think I'm going to called this project finished, It's being taking up all my creative time for far too long.

Now what can I get up to next...

Huw

[JamesF]

That's good news

James

[Gina]

Very good   A finished project - that's amazing - well done Huw   Mine's still in progress but looking good

[Horwig]

Guess who likes the heat from the dome 

Huw

[JamesF]

Strangest view of Scorpius I've ever seen

James

[Gina]

I wouldn't be surprised to see the constellation borders being shown later   Don't rely on the accuracy though - I doubt octapeds have that much knowledge!

[pete_l]

Guess who likes the heat from the dome 

23-21-13-691.jpg

Huw

As someone who's watched Babylon 5 (possibly too many times), I find that image rather disturbing.

[Xplode]

Here's a testimage from my QHY5l-II M with a 2mm f/2.0 lens.

0.2s exposure at 25% gain and it's not dark yet...clouds were rolling in so this is the best i got.

The optics seems very good.

Focus was probably not 100% since i was in a hurry to test with the small opening in the clouds.

FOV is probably something around 100x130 degrees, more than that is wasted at my home. I also have a 1.55mm f/2.0 (135x180 FOV) which i probably will not not need so let my know if someone has need of one.

The camera will be switched to a ASI120MC-S because i want color for aurora and NLC

Edit:

Another opening in the clouds.

This one was 5s (15% gain) with Sharpcap

[Horwig]

Nice Xplode, VERY sharp stars.

Huw

[Xplode]

Thanks.

The lens is used in commercially sold allskycams so i expected it to be good.

I will keep capturing till i go to bed in case there is another opening in the clouds.

[Xplode]

Here's another shot taken just minutes ago.

5s at 25% gain.

Included is a 0.9 mag iridium flare.

[Gina]

Well captured

[Xplode]

I made a video from a test of my camera and lens.

It's a little over 2 hours of a total of 2048 5s exposures

You can download the full quality version from Dropbox (it might not play well on slower computers)

Here's the link to see it directly in the browser with Rubbish quality

[Gina]

As this post is about cameras I think it fits here as much as it fits in my own thread.

I believe I have reached the capability limit of the old QHY5 in my own all sky camera.  For night sky and stars I'm satisfied with the QHY5 with Peltier TEC cooling but for daytime use it pretty much fails with the way I'm using it.  It's simply too sensitive at its minimum exposure time of 1ms   OK I overcame this with a Baader solar film ND filter interposed between lens and image sensor but failed to produce a satisfactory way of introducing this.  OTOH the new series of QHY5 cameras has a minimum exposure of 64 microseconds - that's nearly 16x more light intensity before it whites out.  And that's in spite of better sensitivity at long exposures for night use.  Even the colour version seems better than the old QHY5

For daytime use the colour version of QHY5L-II seems ideal.  An all sky camera really wants a colour image sensor for daytime and it seems to me that the QHY5L-II-C fits the bill for both day and night.

The upshot of all this is that I'm now considering the QHY5L-II-C for a version 3  all aky camera.  Maybe next month or the one after - no funds ATM.

[Gina]

Made a mistake - QHY5L-II-C is 20microsecs minimum exposure - I was quoting the ZWO near equivalent. 

Exposure range: 20 microseconds - 600 second

[Gina]

QHYL-II-C now available again on ebay £149 inc. P&P but NOT including the wide angle lens that the one on Bern's web site at £184 with free P&P includes.  Question is... is the 150 degrees wide angle lens worth more than £35.  If it were 180 degrees I'd say yes, definitely but I'm not sure at 150 degree FOV.

[Horwig]

Well, this proves the value of a colour camera 

No good for astronomy, but nice to look at...

[Gina]

Lovely Huw   Yes, indeed - I want one

[Gina]

The old QHY5 is working well for night viewing but I want daytime for weather watching in conjunction with my weather station.  A QHY5-II-C might be better than the old QHY5 for night use too and then I could use one camera for both.

[Gina]

I've ordered a QHY5-II-C from Bern via ebay due to arrive Thursday