Raspberry Pi All Sky Camera First Light

[Jim Smith]

Last night I tried out my newly constructed All Sky camera.

It uses a RPi 4B with the HQ camera powered with a smartphone power bank battery.

The body and shell are 3D printed.

The camera sensor seems to have a few hot pixels but otherwise I'm quite pleased. The battery was about 50% charged after 12 hours. Look out Perseids!

 

 

 

[Vroobel]

Nice and neat! 🤩

Could you please share a list of components and a website which you based you project on? 

[Jim Smith]

1 hour ago, Vroobel said:

Nice and neat! 🤩

Could you please share a list of components and a website which you based you project on? 

I studied numerous websites, YouTube videos and forum posts on the topic of all-sky cameras. This design is a composite of lots of ideas from different sources.

Most items are easy to find but these links might help. Not all USB cables can carry sufficient current to power the Raspberry Pi.

DOME:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08N4VV99F

 

CAMERA BOLTS AND NUTS:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01432Q56I

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07H3SHN2D

 

USB CABLE:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0CN2VF8Z4

 

RUBBER GASKET UNDER DOME CUT FROM:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07Z6G4PRP

 

DOME BOLTS AND NUTS:

ForgePack M3 x 12mm nuts and bolts.

Edited July 19 by Jim Smith
correction

[Vroobel]

Thanks for that. I would try with PoE. What lens did you use? 

 

[Stuart1971]

My AllSky camera was built using the same RPI and HQ camera and also performs very well once dialled in the settings….👍🏻

Edited July 19 by Stuart1971

[Jim Smith]

5 minutes ago, Vroobel said:

Thanks for that. I would try with PoE. What lens did you use? 

It came free with a ZWO camera. It's 2.5mm focal length. 

[MalcolmP]

2 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

with the HQ camera powered with a smartphone power bank battery.

was about 50% charged after 12 hours. Look out Perseids! < oh yes nearly that time of year again !  

Nice project, very interesting.

I know nothing about smartphones or their powerbanks, and not a lot about RPi yet ! but the idea of something like this has been on my mind , not for all-sky monitoring but just clear sky ( save me getting out of my comfy chair every few minutes to check if a patch of sky or object of interest is clear )
So a question or two if I may :- 

I had thought that a RPi would need power supply from indoors but I guess yours is stand-alone and wifis pics to your indoors kit ? So: what type/capacity is the powerbank ?
In your research did you find that the HiQ module was necessary for the hi def you needed  or might one of the lesser camera modules be good enough for clear-sky brighter stars ?

Thanks.
 

[Jim Smith]

12 minutes ago, MalcolmP said:

Nice project, very interesting.

I know nothing about smartphones or their powerbanks, and not a lot about RPi yet ! but the idea of something like this has been on my mind , not for all-sky monitoring but just clear sky ( save me getting out of my comfy chair every few minutes to check if a patch of sky or object of interest is clear )
So a question or two if I may :- 

I had thought that a RPi would need power supply from indoors but I guess yours is stand-alone and wifis pics to your indoors kit ? So: what type/capacity is the powerbank ?
In your research did you find that the HiQ module was necessary for the hi def you needed  or might one of the lesser camera modules be good enough for clear-sky brighter stars ?

Thanks.
 

The power bank is the Anker PowerCore 10000 which may not be available any more. It's capacity is 10,000 mAh. I'm afraid I don't know how well the other RPi cameras would perform. I captured my individual frames at half full resolution so a lower res sensor might be fine.

I took the camera back indoors to transfer the pics and video as my wifi doesn't reach the garden.

Edited July 19 by Jim Smith
Addenda

[MalcolmP]

37 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

The power bank is the Anker PowerCore 10000 which may not be available any more. It's capacity is 10,000 mAh. I'm afraid I don't know how well the other RPi cameras would perform. I captured my individual frames at half full resolution so a lower res sensor might be fine.

I took the camera back indoors to transfer the pics and video as my wifi doesn't reach the garden.

great info., many thanks
and mine would only need to be powered while I am awake ! 
so that is quite small and well doable  
 

[Jim Smith]

Another test of the all-sky, all-night camera. A nice meteor scoots across the Milky Way about 20 seconds in. The Moon, Jupiter and Mars rise just before the Sun.

I have had problems with dew on the outside of the dome and condensation on the inside. This time I used an anti-fog wipe on the outside and put a fresh silica gel bag inside next to the battery. This time I had no problems...which might be down to different conditions but it's a hopeful result.

 

 

[bottletopburly]

Out of interest what software capture are you using?

[Jim Smith]

I use libcamera.

I copy the line below into the command line...

libcamera-still -t 43200000 --timelapse 30000 -q 95 --gain 8 --shutter 28000000 -o Camera/image%04d.jpg --width 2028 --height 1520

It takes a 28s exposure every 30s for 12 hours; uniquely names them and puts them in a folder called "Camera".

When it's done, this command makes a video called "output.mp4" from the individual frames and puts it in my home folder...

ffmpeg -framerate 25 -i Camera/image%04d.jpg output.mp4

I hope that helps.

 

[Paul M]

Aren't these allsky cameras great!?

I love mine, it's kept me sane through an astronomically and personally difficult 6 months or so.

One of the first things I do each day is check the overnight timelapse to see if anything exciting happened. It's sited remotely, 75 miles from home and runs constantly. 

 

[bottletopburly]

9 hours ago, Paul M said:

Aren't these allsky cameras great!?

I love mine, it's kept me sane through an astronomically and personally difficult 6 months or so.

One of the first things I do each day is check the overnight timelapse to see if anything exciting happened. It's sited remotely, 75 miles from home and runs constantly. 

 

What software do you run on yours  Paul ?.

[Paul M]

1 hour ago, bottletopburly said:

What software do you run on yours  Paul ?.

I use Allsky:

https://github.com/AllskyTeam/allsky

Link to my journey.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/420567-allsky-camera-cutting-the-ribbon/

 

[ampleamp]

To keep me sane, last January i made one from bits when i was off work, and followed the allsky info verbatim; everything went well (unbelievably if you knew my lack of electronic/Pi knowledge). 

"I have had problems with dew on the outside of the dome and condensation on the inside. This time I used an anti-fog wipe on the outside and put a fresh silica gel bag inside next to the battery" - i also had trouble with internal condensation and found the only solution was to increase the size of the box thereby increasing airflow. For the last few months I haven't had any trouble and happily this solution also allowed me to capture all night aurora in May. In retrospect i now think that everything was just a bit too neat in the box and the camera was getting very warm - over 70 degrees on occasion.

[Jim Smith]

50 minutes ago, ampleamp said:

i also had trouble with internal condensation and found the only solution was to increase the size of the box thereby increasing airflow.

Interesting idea. I'll see how it goes with the silica gel for now but a bigger box sounds like a good solution.