All Sky Camera Revisited

[Gina]

Thankfully the sealing seems to be fine - heavy rain and the silica gel is still orange ?

[Gina]

Silica gel is still orange but I can't get the camera to work.  Guess I'll have to take the rig down and bring it indoors again and see what's what - when the rain stops.

[Gina]

I have this horrible feeling that somehow water has got into the camera again.  I can't imagine how as the camera is double sealed.  The camera casing is sealed and the outer casing is sealed plus the outer casing silica gel says it's dry.

Had a nice break this morning when I joined four other ladies for an art session.  The barn owl I painted in the last few sessions was admired and I've now started painting a group of three bright pink spotted toadstools.  I seem to be doing better at watercolour painting than astro kit.  That may be telling me something!

[Gina]

Camera is working again - hooray   I'll turn on the dew heater.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Gina

[Gina]

Here's a screenshot of the KStars FITS Viewer.  Exposure 200µs, gain 0, camera temperature 5°C with cooling on low (5v).

[Dr_Ju_ju]

nice pictures..... of clouds....

[Gina]

Having a problem with the camera again.  It connects, reports it's temperature, appears to take an image but won't download it.  Just sits there with the widget rotating.

[JamesF]

Perhaps try a different application or even on a different computer?

James

[Gina]

It's been working with this Mint desktop with KStars/Ekos and the same RPi running Ubuntu Mate 16.04 and INDI.  It's done it before and rebooting both machines cured it but just done that again and it hasn't this time.

[JamesF]

Well, my approach would probably be:

1. powercycle the camera (unplug & re-plug)
2. try a different USB port
3. try a different application
4. check the output of "dmesg"
5. try another computer
6. try it on Windows with Sharpcap or Firecapture

James

[Gina]

It's working again!  Just stopped and restarted INDI from KStars/Ekos in Mint and it's working.  Nice drop of rain we're having!!! NOT!  Don't you just love computers?????????????????????????????

Edited April 4, 2019 by Gina

[Gina]

Stopped working again but started again after reboot of RPi and two reboots of the Mint desktop.  Seems to be "iffy".  Wonder if it might be due to using WiFi.  I have a CAT6 Ethernet feed to the observatory that I can use.

[Gina]

Downloaded one image but no more despite being set to capture up to 100 images.

[Gina]

Connected via Ethernet but no better.  Very strange.

[Gina]

I'm wondering if I'm ever going to get this ASC working properly.  Actually, I've been wondering that for some time - how many more hurdles are there?!?!

This downloading images problem has only recently cropped up.  It was working fine until today (or was it yesterday?).

Edited April 4, 2019 by Gina

[Dr_Ju_ju]

Is this all running on a Pi3 ??  if so, do you have anything else to try it out on ?

[Gina]

RPi3B running Ubuntu Mate and INDI drivers.  KStars and Ekos on Mint desktop as client.  I do have another RPi3B.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Gina

[Dr_Ju_ju]

If its a resources issue, try running Kstars locally (indoors) & if possible save the images to the Pi (just for testing), but definitely try wired connection & ensure jumbo frames are enabled. on the interfaces (helps with download speeds, well it does for me when I'm saving to Synology Disk Station). 

[Gina]

I am running KStars locally and saving the images to SSD on the Mint desktop.  Wired connection has made no difference.  Don't know what jumbo frames are.

It was all working fine until this morning.  AFAIK nothing has changed except the weather maybe.

[JamesF]

I wonder if this is a USB3 vs. USB2 problem.  Once it hangs it might be interesting to see what the last half-dozen lines or so are in the output of dmesg.

James

[Gina]

I don't think so.  I've been using USB3 astro cameras with the USB2 RPi for a few years now.  In fact, it's all working now.  It's a strange one. 

[Gina]

This is what steady rain looks like on the dome <smirk>   Exposure 60s, gain 200, camera temperature -21.6°C with cooler on full, dew heater on.

[Gina]

Been raining all day, some of it heavy but the silica gel is still orange.  So far so good...  There is work to tidy up the parts of the project inside the observatory but that will wait for better weather.

[Gina]

The colour change silica gel is alright for showing that the ASC is dry inside but relies on reasonable transparency of the outer casing.  This means the wall has to be quite thin and therefore rather fragile.  Also, it seems to me that the thinner the wall the sooner it may be destroyed by UV.  I could perhaps change plastic or even arrange a clear acrylic panel screwed on and sealed but another idea would be to use a DHT22 digital humidity and temperature sensor.  This could possibly be tied into my weather station Arduino - I don't think there's an RPi/INDI driver for this device.

[Dr_Ju_ju]

There are Arduino libraries for the DHT22, I believe Rob Brown's Arduino dew heater system uses them to measure relative humidity...