How to build your own All Sky Camera

Ive been working on this project for nearly half a year on and off, experimenting with different setups and softwares and streaming most of it live here on KZbin. There seems to be a lot of interest from various people so I put together a quick video on how you can build one too.
I had a ton of fun making this thing! Its awesome to see the results so far.
What I used to build my all-sky camera:
ZWO ASI678MC
astronomy-imag...
D21 UV-IR Cut Filter (Optional)
www.cameraconc...
JMX Acrylic - 4in x 2.4in Acrylic Dome
www.amazon.com...
USB 3.0 Right angle cable
www.amazon.com...
Set of cable glands
www.amazon.com...
USB 3.0 hub
www.amazon.com...
Edit: I ended up getting a powered USB hub.
Project box
www.amazon.com...
Dew Heater strap
www.amazon.com...
You may also need:
Machine screws
Piece of metal or dovetail to hold the camera
Silicone sealant
Hole saw + Drill
USB Cables of varying sizes, if you need one longer than a few feet get a powered cable.
A laptop, mini-pc, or Raspberry Pi
#live #livestream #livestreaming #night #sky #tonight #stargazing #nightsky #earthcam #livehd #diy #diyprojects #diyelectronics #raspberrypi #minipc

[@RobertQuinlan-s1s]

Hello and good day, Its good to see a person build something and take the time to show you how to build it and what works and point out what not to do. that will cause problems down the road. Keep up the good works. RTQ

[@decimatrix9474]

Great build and video. Thanks for sharing this and for being concise.

[@_mysilentblue2227]

The dome: Get some Turtle Wax 53477 Hybrid Solutions Pro Flex Wax, Graphene Spray Wax. It will protect it from the elements and the water will bead up and roll of, the wind and rain will most likely make it self cleaning to some extent. Cool little project.

[@kailuasurfing]

That’s an awesome idea

[@gr0uch02a]

Thanks for this, especially the parts list. Awesome result!

[@michelfrance75]

Ideal for capturing a PAN above your home when you are sleeping !

[@lelandclayton5462]

Looking at the specs of the camera it's very similar to a few CCTV cameras I use at work.The cameras I have in mind however only do 30FPS and I would have to disable the IR and white spot light. Kinda tempted to try it and use a UV-IR cut filter.

[@muhdiversity7409]

Very nice! I have one of those SBIG all-sky cameras that I haven't deployed, thing cost about $2.5K when I bought it new something like 10 years ago - it's only 640x480, which is annoying. I'd recommend buying several of those acrylic domes and putting them in storage. A lot of the sellers on Amazon don't stick around for long. Appreciate the parts list, I'll probably take a stab at building something like this for meteor detection.

[@JeromeCantalupo]

Do you have more information about meteor detection? Software, etc

[@jasonpatterson8091]

Cool project. It's nice that in spite of light pollution you're still able to see the Milky Way clearly in this as well as a hint of Andromeda. I've seen several of these that use an acrylic dome and I keep wondering why they don't use a flat piece of acrylic instead, with the camera all the way in the box. I realize that it would be a tight fit with a fisheye lens and that someone must have tried it and failed, just not seeing what the problem would wind up being.

[@JamesPezzella]

Great work!!! I bought a Bloomsky weather station a few years ago that took periodic images of the sky and stiched them together into a daily timelapse. It was solar powered and WiFi enabled so it was easy to run. Unfortunately the company that launched is is out of business. So while I still get weather updates and the occasional sky image - it's all but dead.

[@SolarizeYourLife]

Glad you brought that up, bloomsky screwed up not allowing us access to the camera data before it was sent to their server that bloomsky couldn't afford to keep running!!! Pissed off a lot of people...

[@bradhove1454]

very cool ,I have been thinking of making the very same thing for the same reson, to monitor the night sky mostly but running it 24 hours a day is better . I think there is a place on the market for just such a camera. good job!

[@normanrevere]

Do it! It was a fun project. Glad you liked it!

[@Marcos-bo6vi]

Amazing job, bro! Thanks!

[@williwx8314]

Nice work！

[@ifranrahman]

Hi. Great project. Can you tell me if there any way the sun glare can be avoided during day light. Can a tinted dome be helpful?

[@normanrevere]

@@ifranrahman Thanks! The only thing you can really do is reduce reflections from the camera & housing inside the dome. There may be some kind of protectant out there for the acrylic to reduce scratches, which are mostly what causes glare. Personally I just found that it’s better to swap the dome out when it gets bad. You wouldn’t want to tint the dome unless you don’t care as much about seeing things at night. Otherwise that could probably work. I haven’t tried it though.

[@ifranrahman]

@normanrevere thanks a lot

[@RetiredFE]

Thanks, going to give this a try....

[@itsvishald]

Very Great Idea! I like it!! ☄️

[@deankos3309]

Hiya, nice job, does the camera adjust its exposures for day and night automatically? Or is it the software that’s doing it ?…… I have a real problem with mine dewing up, currently experimenting with dew bands etc to try get it right……

[@normanrevere]

Thanks! The software does. In OBS the settings let me set things to automatic while trying to achieve a certain scene brightness, so it changes exposure depending on the amount of light. That said I think a lot of softwares let you set exposure times to automatic. Mine hasn't had any issues with dew thanks to the dew heater strip I put in. It might be doings its job a bit too well though so I may need to figure out something before this coming summer. During some of my tests last August the cam was getting dangerously hot, probably mostly due to the sun but the heater definitely doesn't help. I might put a small vent on it and do my best to weatherproof / bug proof it. We will see

[@cosmicshadow6935]

@@normanrevere what dew heater strip did you use?

[@normanrevere]

@@cosmicshadow6935 Its just a USB camera lens dew heater strip that I had for one of my lenses. I ripped out the nichrome wire inside and wrapped that around the base of the dome and used a little bit of silicone to hold it in place. Since I uploaded this video I also added a little voltage regulator that can be changed with a small remote, so I can change the strength of the dew heater without having to fiddle with things inside the box.

[@careyviton]

Awesome project. Where can I learn more ?

[@andrewpoison]

Like it! But I wonder: how long is the sensor going to last when operated 24/7 - especially under daylight and with the sun focus for hours and hours onto the sensor. Just as human eyes, sensors usually don't like sunlight hitting them for more than a split second. And since it is actually a camera designed for the evening/night ... hmmm. I see on your video that it seems to work well right now, I'm just wondering if you need to buy a new cam every 6 months or so because it starts "burning up".

[@normanrevere]

@@andrewpoison from what I can see, the sensor hasn’t suffered any noticeable damage whatsoever. Ive had it streaming the sky on my channel since I uploaded this video, and it’s still humming along perfectly fine! I did take a dark frame when I started streaming, when I finish my one year timelapse I can take another and compare. I think the reason it’s fine is because the lens is a 2.5mm fisheye. The suns rays aren’t being concentrated very much compared to a normal lens.

[@whotookmymojo]

Hello can you please share the links for the small cooling fan , the metal fins and bracket? Thanks

[@normanrevere]

So the small cooling fan is this: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EL938E6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 But its not available anymore. I got it for another project years ago, but anything small and similar would work. The fins, I have no idea. I found it in one of my "random junk" boxes and I think it came from a really old laptop or something. The bracket is just an L bracket for woodwork.

[@RetiredFE]

Just curious, do you use a raspberry pi, or are you just using a cord from the camera to a computer using sharpcap? Thanks, really liked this video....

[@cosmicshadow6935]

Any thoughts on how you chose which camera? Looking at the ZWO ASI678MC, ZWO ASI676MC, and the ZWO ASI715MC, but in this use case I'm not 100% sure what stats really matter. The 715 is a lot cheaper and has smaller pixels and a good resolution, but not sure if the lower full well and read noise will counter act or matter in this case.

[@normanrevere]

I like the 678mc, it was recommended to me from someone who uses theirs to record their imaging sessions. But that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t get awesome results with something else. I’m not sure if it would matter in practice, but having a low read noise is really nice. Especially when the cam sits baking in the sun half the time.

[@cosmicshadow6935]

@@normanrevere Thanks, that makes some sense. I've got an ASI2600MM for deep sky and I understand the stats from that, but I've never done planetary and I know their cams are quite different when it comes to what's important and this is a different use case altogether. Your video quality of the timelapse looks amazing, so that's good enough a sale for me when choosing between similar cams. Not sure if I'll pull the unit one day to do planetary or just get a newer one if I ever switch to doing that. My new scope is short focal length, so it'll be awhile.

[@Oamaruastro]

This is very helpful--I'm setting one of these up myself. The part I'm having trouble with is how to stream it to a website. Do you have tips on that?

[@normanrevere]

Personally I stream it to KZbin through OBS. There are other programs out there that can output as images, which you can then send to a website automatically, and I believe OBS is capable of that as well. I don't have a ton of experience with that unfortunately!

[@STAR37FM]

What software you used to capture the images, the day to night and night to day transition are smooth!

[@HWJJSCHUMACHER]

y can use some nano cream fofrom the car(hot wax) to make the drobs roll down by themselves

[@GrowingAnswers]

Id like to know how long your usb cable is. I am building another allsky cam myself and considering keeping to pi5 in the house instead of all in one box outside. I was a hardcore astrophotographer myself for a while until I retired the hobby to more simple things. I also use an Allsky7 meteor system which is pretty cool. I am concerned with running my pi5 along with the camera in the same housing because of heat issues and then over-engineering cooling systems along with automated dew heater control. I like you idea of just housing the camera outside. So my 2 questions are... Is your dew heater always on or if not, how is it triggered? And how do you extend your usb, just a powered hub?

[@normanrevere]

Mine is a powered 30 ft USB 2.0. I also upgraded to a powered USB hub after the video was made, which I believe I put in the description. The dew heater is always on. You could probably put some kind of thermal switch in there, or some other kind of sensor to turn it on or off. I think most of the heat is caused by the sun though. I've experimented with turning it off during the day, but it had a pretty negligible impact on the camera temp. I may build a new housing in the future, with a TEC incorporated somewhere. I have actually made a few bootleg upgrades to the housing since I uploaded this, which I'll show off in an update video that I'll put out when the cam gets 1 year old. I have been recording constantly since I uploaded this! In the meantime, this is what i've done: Added a powered USB hub, Added a sealed copper pipe with both ends sticking out the side of the housing, with a bunch of metal chain inside to act as thermal mass & heatsink for the cam. The chain is attached directly to the bit of metal I attached to the bottom of the cam, with some thermal paste added between the chain links and the copper pipe. It helped drop the internal temp by almost 10-15f. I also stuck some reflective tape to the bottom and back of the housing. That helped lower the temp a few degrees as well. Nowadays the cam averages around 120-130f on a hot sunny day. I would put it all the way around, but I think my neighbors think I'm weird enough already for having this thing on my roof. I don't need to make it even more noticeable! Haha.

[@GrowingAnswers]

@@normanrevere I ended up just putting everything inside an 8" housing (like yours, just bigger). I used a cpu heatsink on the inside attached to a linear fin heatsink on the outside underneath. Which is where the flange base attaches. The heatsinks are sealed airtight. There is a PWM fan on the PI5 and an 12v blower on the ASI676MC. These create the air circulation for the internal heatsink so it does not need its own fan. The outside heatsink is cooled passively just by wind. Almost all of the exterior housing is covered in aluminum tape except the bottom. I added 2, 12v/7 watt polyimide stickers in series to the underside of the lid (under the dome, but inside the box) for dew control. It acts similar to under-the-floor heating. They are triggered on by a relay which is activated by a GPIO pin. I use no sensors for the dew control. I use the open-weather module in the allsky software and set it to activate when the dew point is within 5 degrees F of ambient (default is 10 degrees which I found is too much and not needed). I have not had any dew issues for the past month. I also have it set to turn the heaters on when the temps are near freezing no matter what the dew point is to make sure snow and ice melt. The 2, 7 watt heater strips in series total 3.5 watts spread over a larger surface area. This is better than a bunch a resistors wired together and focuses the heat to the dome (the heater strips have foam pads covering them so they are not cooled by fans). This past week has been near 100F and full sun. I have not seen the core CPU temp of the Pi5 hit 60C yet. I don't have a temp sensor for the inside of housing, but the camera sensor when not in use, shows about 50C during the hot weather. So that's relatively close the the internal housing temp. That's not much different than an attic. I also purged the housing with dry nitrogen gas before closing to eliminate any potential for internal condensation during cold days. Assuming it has no micro-air leaks. The whole system is powered by a 12v feed from a 12v UPS and I use an 12-24v to 5.1v 5A USB-C converter inside the housing. This allows it to be easily removed and plugged to any mobile 12v source such as a PD battery bank. I found this to be more versatile than POE. I also wired in some external LEDs in parallel to the dew heaters to show visually if the heaters are actually being powered since the software module only shows activation and not power flow. There could be some improvement to the heat dissipation system but for as long as it's done mostly passively, I would prefer not to over-do it. Since it will be very cold during winter I'm trying to retain some amount of heat inside the housing. I do need to add a comment about meteor imaging using these planetary cams though. For mono I highly suggest binning minimal of 2x2. Larger pixels are more sensitive to light. I find running my color 676 at full res, the pixels are too small to absorb light from fast moving light sources. For satellites and planes it works great though no matter how dim they are. Binning a color cam though is pointless since it is impossible to make a group of pixels into one at the hardware level. In my case though, my goal is to capture better images of "fireballs" with better color, resolution and suppressed noise vs my Allsky7 meteor system can produce. The meteor system is amazing for video capture of even the most faint meteors but it's image creation is just stacked frames and is usually over exposing bright meteors with only fair color detail. I have compared images/video from both systems and even the semi-bright meteors are rather faint using the allsky cam. If meteors are the goal then a color camera with a pixel size of 4um or larger is suggested or bin mono to achieve the same or larger pixel size. Although low res kind of sucks for fish-eye lenses. The other goal with this is for aurora should it occur again. The 676MC is starvis 2 and has amazing light sensitivity for that purpose. My meteor system did capture all night video of that event, but creating time-lapses from 7 cams worth of video is a huge pain. That's were these types of allsky cams really simplify things. The only thing I wish I could find is a better/faster lens and they don't really exist for these small planetary camera sensors in fish-eye format. The stock lenses are about as good as it gets.

[@LaurentiuDobjanski]

Bravo!

[@cubzilla1524]

What Lens is it , you have everything listed but that ;-)

[@normanrevere]

Oh wow! You're right. Its the lens that comes with the 678mc. Its a ZWO 2.5mm 170 degree lens. There are a lot of similar ones that would work as well.

[@mkmcgee]

What music is that? It's awesome!

[@mkmcgee]

Never mind.... I see it now. lol

[@Fred_Klingon]

I'm seeing many projects like this using a dome to protect the camera. I'm also thinking about building a similar project, but I'm concerned about the protectiong getting dirty with time, the air here is not very clean, and probably some particles will deposit over the glass in a month or two. This is why I'm thinking about a flat glass protection instead of a dome, which maybe I can clean with some kind of electric wiper. The place where I'm going to install the camera is not very easy to reach, so I'd prefer to avoid to go there if not really necessary. Any ideas?

[@normanrevere]

Honestly that could probably work if you place the camera as close to the glass as possible. There could be distortions on the outer edges, though I guess you still get those with a dome as well. I think my biggest concern would be water and dust collecting on the flat surface if it is level. You would probably have to angle it so water can flow off. As for the dome getting dirty, for the most part the rain takes care of it. I sometimes spray it with a hose to wash it off if it hasn't rained in a while. I rarely have to go up and clean it with a cloth. Build it and find out!

[@Fred_Klingon]

@@normanrevere thanks for your tips. I think you're right, a flat surface may be easier to clean but accumulate dirt more easily. I'll try to use a dome, and maybe add a sprinkler to spray some water in case It gets dirty. Getting the water is not a problem, I can collect the rain in a little tank, and use that. But I'll test the setup before, maybe it will stay clean. The problem is that the place where I want to mount the camera is not easy to reach, the only way to get there is to exit through a skylight on the roof, which is not the easiest operation 😄

[@marvinwhisman3333]

I probably missed it, but what software are you using with this.

[@normanrevere]

OBS. I stream and record with it. That's also how I'm able to display all the widgets. There are a few options besides OBS though. And if you aren't streaming, its not the best option. AllSkyEye and Indiallsky are two that come to mind.

[@richardbrenner242]

Hi. I am researching how to build my own. Is there anything you would do differently?

[@normanrevere]

Yes there is. I’d start by using a powered USB hub, adding a voltage regulator to the dew heater, and making a better passive cooling system than what I had. I’d also mention marking the orientation of the camera both on the cam and the housing so if you have to take things apart you can put them back exactly how they were prior. I have made a lot of changes since I uploaded this video, and while the setup in this vid worked well for me, the changes I made have made things much better. I’ll make a follow up video to this one at some point soon.

[@goooser410]

awesome !!!!

[@normanrevere]

Thanks!

[@HWJJSCHUMACHER]

if you take out oll the filter and use a fotoFLASHLIGHT (or a stratoskop) you may catch some "ORBS" :::THEY ALWAYS COME AROUND

[@HWJJSCHUMACHER]

i thnk you can not see them in timelaps

[@lam513]

Gud

[@aldopaiva1762]

Hello, I also set up an All Sky, PI4 + ASI120MC-S, unfortunelly, I have the problem ASI_ERROR_TIMEOUT, please, can you share the Allsky WebUI Setup that you used ? Thanks in Advance!!

[@normanrevere]

I just use OBS. The cam connects to my mini-pc and then I just run the cam through there. Is the camera the thing that is crashing? or is it software? If its the camera, it might not be getting enough power or your USB cable is too long. I fixed that by using a powered USB hub and a short USB from the hub to the camera.

[@SolarizeYourLife]

Too bad about city light pollution...

[@normanrevere]

Yeah... it is what it is. Maybe one day I can build one somewhere darker.