Gina's DIY All Sky Camera - Mark 4 - with ZWO ASI185MC

[Gina]

[Gina]

[Gina]

[Gina]

Better - some stars showing

[Gina]

[Gina]

High thin cloud and thicker lower cloud.  Stars look nice and sharp   Still no condensation   Should be good whenever we get a proper clear night.

[Gina]

Here is a snapshot with 20s exposure and still no noise showing.

[Gina]

20s exposure and gamma reduced from 50 to 10 (50 is half way and corresponds to a gamma of 1).

[Gina]

Looking better tonight with clear skies forecast for after midnight.

[Gina]

Just waiting for it to get dark now.

[Gina]

I think when the pesky moon goes out of shot I'll turn the camera round 90° so that the long axis is oriented N-S to get the best view of the Milky Way.

[Gina]

Vapour trails galore!!

[Gina]

Not dark yet but showing promise

[Gina]

Stars beginning to show

[Gina]

Here comes the rain! It's raining again!  Singing in the rain???? and several other songs... 

[Gina]

This camera and lens combo works fine in both night and day   Though does tend to partly white out at times.  I've been thinking that since rain comes mostly from the southwest that a good view down to the horizon in that direction would be a good idea.  Also there are trees and rising ground to the NW so no need for horizon level view in that direction.  I know most people seem to orientate their ASC either E-W or N-S but I'm not sure this is always best.

[Gina]

The forecast says clear sky tonight but I wonder...  I've turned the camera 90° so now east is up, west is down, north is to the right and south to the left.  If we do get a clear night I'm hoping to capture the Milky Way but I'm not holding my breath.

[Gina]

Jupiter and one or two stars starting to show.

[Gina]

Constellations starting to show - auto-exposure now at 4s.  Gamma reduced to 15.

[Gina]

Auto-exposure seems to max out at 4s so I've set it to 10s manual and increased the gamma to 20 to show the stars.

[ChrisLX200]

I can see stars! Not here unfortunately but I'm waiting patiently

ChrisH

[Gina]

30s exposure and gamma at 10 - still no noise showing but plenty of stars.  Wispy cloud and vapour trails too unfortunately.  And reflections in the glass dome

[Gina]

A frame taken from an AVI captured last night, direct from the AVI and enhanced in Photoshop CS5.  Later in the video the Milky Way just seemed to disappear.

 

[Gina]

Clear night but full moon.

[Gina]

Reasonably dark now apart from the moon.  Exposure time 10s, gamma setting of 3.