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All Sky Camera Images


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Hi All,

New to SGL, so I hope this is the correct spot to open a thread on All Sky images. knockatore_obs_-2024-05-20T03-35-21-672.thumb.png.8bce40e264106d12d96063f2d41f1c0b.png

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

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Posted (edited)

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 by Pat Curran
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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.

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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

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  • 3 weeks later...

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

allskeye_exposure_settings.png

redundant_start_all_sky_files.png

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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! 🙂knockatore_obs_-2024-06-11T02-02-41-094.thumb.png.a7fc2bf025b0e102505029ac73e1c3e1.png20240611_203435.thumb.jpg.6f43456073fbe5085693badcd47bc818.jpg

Regards,

Pat

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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

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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.

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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

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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...

 

knockatore_obs_-2024-06-12T01-32-43-479.png

knockatore_obs_-2024-06-12T01-33-32-557.png

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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.

knockatore_obs_-2024-06-12T01-08-34-129.png

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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

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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.

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