All Sky Camera Images

[Pat Curran]

Hi All,

New to SGL, so I hope this is the correct spot to open a thread on All Sky images. 

This was captured Monday morning. Haven't seen a meteor with such a narrow train and sudden outburst before.

I'm in SE Ireland; anyone else capture this  from a different location or can add more intel?

Thanks,

Pat

[Pat Curran]

I am considering moving from the 178MM to the new 686MC recently released by ZWO for my All Sky setup.

The difference in pixel size is 2um smaller for the new cam but a drop from 14bit to 12bit.

Given no change in lens, can I expect an improvement in definition despite the move from mono to colour?

Thanks,

Pat

Edited May 22 by Pat Curran

[AstroKeith]

I've assembled a few such cameras for myself and others, plus for digital finders. My findings are that the loss of sensitivity with colour cameras is very significant. Sensitivity is all important and so I wouldn't recommend it personally.

[Pat Curran]

Thanks Keith,

I appreciate your reply.

I've seen the 183MC used as an All Sky camera, a much bigger sensor, but the same 2.4um pixel as the 178MM. However, it's impossible to judge the extent of definition lost on YouTube videos.

Pat

[Pat Curran]

Tried posting this query on the AllSkEye Forum but Michael seems to be away at present.

I have a large proportion of blank frames (completely, or almost completely dark) each night at start and end periods.

The latest generated night video has 22 seconds worth of them out of a total time of 1 Min 24 seconds, so about 25% total are not showing anything.

I have the following settings set:

• Nighttime Acquisition Start Adjustment = 30
• Nighttime Acquisition End Adjustment = -30
• GAIN Transition Sunrise/Sunset Offset = -30
• GAIN Transition Time Period = 30

Please see attached screenshot of the additional settings in the Exposure Mode section. Also attached is a screenshot from the Images Conversion Output folder from the start of a night's capture back in May.

If there are any users of this great software reading, or indeed any All Sky imagers, can I ask you to take a look at these attachments please?
Have I settings incorrectly set such that one is fighting the other perhaps, or is there some other reason why I am not getting correctly exposed images just after sunset and before sunrise?

Thanks,

Pat

[Pat Curran]

Might be a bit off topic, but I thought I'd show you my latest 'Alien' captured by the All Sky Camera...looks to be either an owl or a buzzard...he or she didn't stay for the full 40sec exposure! 🙂

Regards,

Pat

[happy-kat]

Welcome

Can't help with your early and late images, but could I ask what you use for your brightness target value please, I like how your images are.

 

[Pat Curran]

Hi happy-kat,

The 178MM is set to auto exposure with a max exposure limit of 45 seconds set. No minimum exposure time has been set so the software allows the camera operate at it fastest 0.032sec. if needed. I have Gain set to 0.

Beyond that I followed the default settings in the AllSkEye software as shown above.

BTW, that's the moon setting in the WSW in my first post above, so glad the 178MM was able to capture that meteor.

Regards,

Pat

[happy-kat]

Thank you for saying how your settings are. Your dark splodges given it is night time maybe an owl is using your camera as an observing post and is sitting on the camera. What is your pause between acquisitions, I'm exposing max is 45s and my pause between acquisitions is 50s (effectively a pause of 5s to complete the processing. The meteor is great.

[Pat Curran]

Under Settings > Aquisition Settings - Main > Pause / Interval [ms] = 0

So no interval between exposures.

As far as I can tell, there are no lost frames via the 20ft underground USB 2.0 cable.

Pat

[Pat Curran]

Just been going through the last few nights captures...and as an example as to why I don't want any interval between exposures, here are two images captured consecutively on Wednesday morning showing part of the same flare on both.

It's most likely a flaring satellite, but it could also be a meteor which decided to flare just as one image was ending and the next exposing...

 

[Pat Curran]

The 178MM also captured this single frame 25 minutes earlier on Wednesday morning...no doubt it would have been even more impressive without the 'light' cloud cover!

The sky glow to my SSW is the city of Waterford 15 miles away.

[happy-kat]

That is great your setup can support no pause, my 7 inch needs a pause to run without getting stuck and stopping.

Those captures are lovely and clear.

[Pat Curran]

5 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

... my 7 inch needs a pause to run without getting stuck and stopping....

What camera are you using?

Pat

[happy-kat]

ASI290MC though without an IR/UV filter so stars are a little bloated.

[Pat Curran]

There must be a bottleneck in the data flowing into the storage device.

The 290 can output 5Gb bandwidth through USB 3.0, which is more than adequate for sending 45sec exposures through to storage without pause.

Pat

[happy-kat]

It's direct usb 2 effectively into the tablet but when had less pause it got stuck clearing the acquisition folder and stopped. It's working now with 5 second pause. 45 seconds on 0 gain is working for me. 

[Pat Curran]

Can you post one of your stills here?...I'd like to see the difference in the two cameras.

Thanks,

Pat

Edited yesterday at 22:06 by Pat Curran

[happy-kat]

I've been adjusting focus and colour balance, through I'm not using the camera in a typical location but through a lean-2 roof with very limited sky line. The camera picks up IR and I'm not using a block so that does effect the resulting images. I'll see if today's focus tweak has helped tonight.

[Paul M]

I've been playing with my own allsky camera for a while now.

It's site 75 miles from home at our Cumbrian getaway, which has a much darker sky than home. I Use an ASI178MC camera that I already had, just waiting to be repurposed.  I started with the lens included with the camera but that didn't fit the whole 180 deg on the sensor, So recently swapped to a more suitable lens. 

It runs on a Ras Pi 4 that lives in the same case and it's all powered via PoE. So just a single cable.

Here is a link to my own adventure. The sky doesn't get nearly dark up there this close to the solstice so, with the weather and all, there isn't much to look at just now.

I'm currently building a new case, with a large 6" dome, thsi allows ventilation holes to be drilled round the camera mount to allow air to circulate form the very hot RasPi into the dome and , hopefully, prevent fogging and dew.

I do have a Ras Pi 5 that I tried a while ago but it was sulking on voltage drop. That seems to have been due to an underrated PoE splitter. I've already replaced that so might give the Pi% anoth go next time I'm on site.